


RAs on duty

by stonerbughead



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cult Rituals, F/M, Fluff, Investigative Duo, Journalist!Betty, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Smut, Spring Break, The Farm: College Edition, Writer!Jughead, investigating is their kink what can i say, there's a romantic joint smoking scene, you know the drill by now y’all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-01-12 18:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18452582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonerbughead/pseuds/stonerbughead
Summary: An unfairly cold March wind whips through the night. No matter what the campus calendar might say about “spring,” upstate New York is still thawing.Clad in his denim sherpa jacket, Jughead Jones crouches behind a brick wall on the roof of his dorm, cheek to cheek with a pink-faced, breathless Betty Cooper. This is the last possible place Jughead expected to find himself on a Friday night—and over spring break, no less.A spring break story in two parts. Or: through a twist of fate, RAs Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones end up the two RAs left behind in Sweetwater Hall over spring break at Riverdale College—along with a handful of misfits.***5th Bughead Fanfiction Awards Winner for Post High School***





	1. a riddle during rounds

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to my best friend Dondré, who was an RA for most of our college years.
> 
> I had a spring break idea and then I mashed it up with some season 3 plotlines bc like why not? This is my first time writing investigative duo Bughead and I hope I did those kinky kids some justice! Hope y’all enjoy! Happy Spring! XOXO Maria

**friday night**

An unfairly cold March wind whips through the night. No matter what the campus calendar might say about “spring,” upstate New York is still thawing.

Clad in his denim sherpa jacket, Jughead Jones crouches behind a brick wall on the roof of his dorm, cheek to cheek with a pink-faced, breathless Betty Cooper. This is the last possible place Jughead expected to find himself on a Friday night—and over spring break, no less.

“What should we do?” Betty whispers out of the side of her mouth, her eyes darting between Jughead and the chaotic scene before them.

“Maybe you should go get campus security,” Jughead whispers back. “I’ll stay and watch to make sure no one gets hurt.” His blue eyes pierce Betty’s stunning greens as Jughead holds her gaze to ensure Betty understands what he’s really trying to say. _I’ve got your back._

Betty nods frantically, seeming to gain strength from Jughead’s insistent look. She squeezes his hand, both of them exchanging a shaky smile before she releases him, hunching even farther down as she creeps across the roof, trying desperately to remain undetected. Jughead continues to observe their classmates, his pulse quickening as he watches Betty’s movements out of the corner of his eye, subtle and sleek in the black leather jacket he still can’t believe she owns.

His gut clenches when Betty reaches the door. She’s out in the open but no one seems to see her. He breathes in, out. Her hand makes contact with the door knob. She jiggles it once. But it doesn’t budge. Twice. She jiggles it a third time, a little frantic but trying not to make too much noise, before turning to Jughead, eyes widening as they come to the same terrifying realization: They’re locked in. On the roof. _With them._

  
  
  


****

**last friday evening** **_(one week earlier_** _)_

Riverdale College’s last Friday class lets out at exactly 5:45 PM.

By 6:00, the halls are alive with the sounds of spring break. Suitcases rolling down linoleum hallway floors, friends yelling goodbyes, doors shutting and locking with definitive clicks.

Sweetwater Hall is populated with almost entirely senior undergraduate students, and everyone’s desperately fleeing, ready for a last week of freedom before the reality of finals and graduation and the uncertain future comes crashing down on them all.

···

Betty loves her best friend dearly, but she’s far past ready for the calm and quiet that will soon settle over the dorm once Veronica (and most of the other residents) decamp for brighter, more Instagram-worthy pastures.

Perched on the bed in Veronica’s single room, Betty fingers the deep purple duvet and watches her brunette friend stand before her stuffed closet with hands on her hips, frowning at her clothes conspiratorially. Veronica had never quite gotten the hang of packing the right amount for a standard college dorm room. 

Thankfully…

“Our college days are numbered, B,” Veronica says, turning back around and fixing Betty with her judging stare instead.

Betty shoots her a sad smile. “You know I wish I could come with you.”

“Then _do_ come with me, babe! I can always get them to bump someone from the flight for you!” Veronica holds a professional-looking plaid jumper dress in her hands, carefully inspecting it before folding it and adding the garment to her rapidly-filling suitcase.

“You know I can’t, V,” Betty says, her tone full of regret.

Veronica sighs, still refusing to believe that Betty is no longer accompanying her to Paris.

Since the two had become friends as freshmen at Riverdale College, it had been one of Veronica’s long-standing offers to pay for a girls’ trip for the two of them to travel somewhere glamorous over spring break. Various internships and family obligations had kept Betty away other years, but this time Betty and Veronica had set out to finally take their trip. Their friend Cheryl, who had graduated the year before, was attending grad school in Paris. It seemed like the perfect excuse to visit their friend and indulge in beautiful art, expensive wine, and decadent cheese for a week. Betty had been completely on board for an adventure with two of her closest friends, excited for what would’ve been her first European excursion.

But that was up until a few days earlier, when Betty’s friend Ethel Muggs received some terrible news.

She was sitting next to Betty in one of Sweetwater Hall’s common rooms. As the two of the four RAs in their dorm with the best decorating skills, Ethel and Betty usually take the lead on updating the bulletin boards in the building. The pair were surrounded by construction paper and tape and glitter as they planned a new bulletin board on consent culture for the dorm lobby together.

Until Ethel got the call. Her father had suffered a serious heart attack, and she needed to come home ASAP. Ethel flew home immediately, leaving campus—and her duty to stay in Sweetwater Hall for the next week as one of the two spring break RAs—behind.

“You’re too nice, Betty,” Veronica complains now as she struggles to zip up her suitcase. “Why did _you_ have to be the one to stay behind for Ethel?”

Betty sighs, ready to repeat herself for approximately the sixth time since she’d broken the bad news to Veronica two days prior. “Jughead was already one of the two staying behind and Midge had tickets to go see her family.”

“ _You_ had tickets to go see your family!” Veronica counters to Betty’s bemused expression.

Betty stands up, coming to place an arm around Veronica, who leans on Betty’s shoulder. “You and I have plenty of time to go to Paris, Veronica,” Betty says. “Ethel needed to be with her family, and Midge deserves to be as well.”

“You’re such a saint,” Veronica says, her words muffled a little in Betty’s sweater. “And how do you know we’ll get another chance to go to Paris?”

Betty knows Veronica’s trust issues have worsened since her father was revealed to be the head of a major criminal conspiracy midway through college. “We’ll make it to Paris after college ends,” Betty says, her voice firm and confident as she gently rubs Veronica’s back.

“But what if nothing is the same after college?” Veronica whispers.

“We’ll always be best friends, V,” Betty says, kissing the top of her head. “I promise.”

The two friends hug before Veronica lets go of Betty to wipe her eyes with a tissue and straighten herself up in the mirror. 

“I was really hoping we could hook you up with a hot Parisian man,” Veronica says, pouting. 

Betty shakes her head, though she’s happy to hear her friend back to her normal self. “You know I don’t like random hookups with strange men, no less in a country where I can’t speak the language.”

Veronica sighs, ordering a car to the airport on her phone as she shakes her head back at Betty. “It’s exactly that attitude that has kept you single for most of college, my dear Bettykins.”

Betty gulps, trying not to think of the English major she has a major crush on. Betty’s been hyping herself up to talk to him about her feelings for weeks, and spring break may just be her shot.

But this is all a _true_ secret. No one knows, not even Veronica.

Expelling the thought from her mind for the time being, Betty hoists Veronica’s Louis Vuitton duffel bag over her shoulder. “Let me walk you to the car, V. It’s the least I can do.”

···

One of Jughead’s favorite things about being an RA is the desk in the RA rooms. It’s about two inches wider than the model they provide in the normal rooms, and therefore much more accommodating to his absurd collection of books.

Currently, the desk in question is stacked high with research for his senior thesis. Three haphazard towers of library books have been constructed. And in the middle of the chaos, Jughead sits shaking his head at his computer screen as his friends pass Archie’s phone around on the other end. Sweet Pea, Archie, and Fangs have been FaceTiming Jughead for about ten minutes already, intent on showing him every inch of the beach house he’s missing out on. They already sound completely wasted, and by Jughead’s count, they haven’t been in Florida much longer than an hour.

“This is exactly why I’m not there,” Jughead says, gesturing toward the screen as he watches Sweet Pea shotgun a beer over the kitchen sink. Fangs and Archie both whoop and Jughead shakes his head again. At this rate, his head is going to fall off his shoulders.

“This has been fun, guys, but I’m signing off now,” he says. “Got a lot of thesis-writing to do.” He taps one of the stacks of books next to him jokingly, then rushes to keep it from collapsing when the slight touch throws the tower off balance.

“Jesus, Jug, it’s like a life-size Jenga game over there,” Fangs says, laughing through a mouthful of beer.

“You’re breaking up,” Jughead jokes, making static sounds with his mouth.

“Have fun with Betty!” Archie sing-songs as all three of them whoop and ooh.

Jughead blushes. Ever since word got out that Ethel had gone home to care for her ailing dad and Betty had stepped up to cover for her, Jughead’s palms had been clammy at the thought.

His friends, knowing his type well even despite his lack of college dating history, have been attune to his crush on Betty for months. They’ve taken to calling her the Hot Patron Saint of Sweetwater because, as Sweet Pea says, “She’s smoking hot but she’s also...smoking good. Like a saint.”

But Jughead has to spend the next week being around Betty, covering their RA duties together. He can’t have his friends throwing him off with their douchey jokes. No matter how well-intentioned they may technically be.

“Bye,” he says, his voice cracking a tiny bit. He ends the call, the sound of his friends cackling at the voice-crack the last thing he hears before the call hangs up.

He shuts his laptop in defiance, staring at the books around him.

It’s true he doesn’t want to party in Florida, which is one of the main reasons he stayed behind. He’d done the same thing sophomore year (his first year working as an RA), assuming that a typical, cheap, spring break beach vacation wasn’t really his scene. But after conceding to his friends’ annoying demands, he came along junior year to his complete distaste.

Now, as a senior, Jughead’s happy to have his thesis as an ironclad excuse for why he immediately volunteered to stay behind at the beginning of the semester. Anything to avoid the nonstop blackout sesh that his friends’ week will surely be. They’ll inevitably be hooking up with girls (and guys too, in Fangs’ case) and partying all week, days blending into each other amongst all the booze and shitty food and late nights. Jughead hated it the year before as much as he’d expected to. He gave it the ol’ college try, as they say, and then vowed: never again.

Besides, Jughead really does need to work on his thesis...he’s far behind the schedule he’d set for himself in January. And as for hooking up, there had only been two girls he’d ever even _liked_ in his life: his short-lived high school girlfriend Sabrina Spellman and, as his friends had alluded to, the RA who lives in the room directly below his own: Betty Cooper. He’d been harboring a crush on her all year, ever since they’d formally met at their building’s RA orientation. He hadn’t done anything about it because...well, he was rusty.

After all, his only other relationship had been over four years ago, lasting the first three months of his senior year of high school. Once he fell for Sabrina, _everything_ felt meaningful and romantic. Every touch was heaven, every cute thing Sabrina said a sign. In November, as he was working on his college applications, he began contemplating whether he should ask her to factor him into her plans. They spent every weekend together, shopping for records at the store a town over or grabbing diner food and hitting the movies. He thought that was what love was, having things in common and giggling through fumbling firsts in the backseats of cars.

But the Monday he was going to pull Sabrina aside at lunch to talk about their future, she beat him to the punch, and he meant that literally. Punched in the gut.

“It’s over, Jughead. Let’s be real, we’re friends who fucked a few times. Has it really ever felt right to you?” He’d never forget the earnest look on her face. It made it hurt that much more.

She’d taken all his firsts, but for her he’d been just a three-month pit stop on the way to her next conquest. As he watched her flirt around many of his classmates for the rest of the year, he also wondered how much of their relationship had been Sabrina putting on a show for him, trying to fit the mold of what she thought Jughead would want out of a girl. That made it easier, then, to get over her. It hadn’t been the right fit at all, and he hoped one day he would find that person.

_Maybe Betty could be that person._

  
  
  


**saturday morning**

Betty yawns as she stirs her coffee at the machine in the dining hall. After seeing Veronica off the evening before, Betty had ordered a pizza and sequestered herself in her room with Netflix and an eighth of Sour Diesel. Jughead had texted her, too, making her feel extra warm in her little stoned blanket cocoon.

 **JUGHEAD:** _Hey, it seems very likely I’ll end up wandering around the building a bit for weird thesis reasons tonight and tomorrow night, so I basically have rounds covered. But Sunday onward...you are not getting out of it!_

 **BETTY:** _Weird...but I’ll take it. You’re too good to me. See you soon :)_

Now it’s Saturday morning. Officially time to face the band of misfits who’d chosen to stay behind for spring break. Betty carefully places her coffee cup on the tray next to her pancakes and eggs, and then scans the nearly-empty dining hall. She bites her lip when she sees Jughead sitting alone, hunched over in his typical sherpa jacket, flannel, and beanie, his tray piled high with breakfast food and a side of cereal for good measure.

Betty had seen Jughead around campus since freshman year, and had admittedly always been intrigued by him—even Veronica had once drunkenly claimed he was “ _so_ Betty’s type”—but they’d never really gotten a chance to talk, their circles never quite overlapping. 

That was, until Betty decided to become an RA for her final year of college for purely practical reasons: save some money before graduation and the impending, expensive undertaking of adulthood; another thing to throw on her resume; a big single room, in that order. 

They finally formally met at their building’s orientation in August. They’d gotten on well while patrolling together on rounds and in meetings and activities all year since, and Betty sometimes wondered if Jughead was flirting with her, but nothing yet had happened.

Jughead is spaced out, seemingly engrossed in a well-worn book, leaving Betty to talk herself into walking over to him. She tries to picture Veronica’s voice in her head. In a parallel universe, she’d be eating pastries in some Parisian cafe with Veronica and Cheryl, V hissing in her ear to ask the cute waiter for his number.

_“You’re a catch, Betty. Put yourself out there every once in awhile.”_

A renewed confidence in her step, Betty approaches Jughead’s table. “Hey Jughead,” she says softly, pausing in front of him. “Mind if I join you?”

Jughead looks up from his book immediately, closing it without even saving his place. It also doesn’t escape Betty that Jughead’s eyes light up the second they make eye contact. He gestures toward the chair opposite him. “Please do join me.”

Betty smiles, putting her tray down and taking off her backpack. “So, happy spring break,” she says, lifting her coffee cup to her lips.

“Woohoo,” Jughead says dryly, taking a bite of his toast. “I’m just here to escape Girls Gone Wild and write my thesis.”

Betty grins. “My friends are away too. Paris.”

Jughead’s eyes widen. “Lucky Veronica,” he says knowingly. 

“Always,” Betty says, grinning wistfully. “You’re writing a fiction thesis, right?” she asks. 

Jughead gives her a challenging look. “You been researching me, Cooper?” he teases.

Betty shrugs, a slight blush tinting her cheeks. “I may or may not have read the story you had published in the lit mag last spring,” she admits. “I sincerely _loved_ it.”

“Wow,” he says. “I didn’t think anyone actually read that thing.”

“Do you mostly write mystery?”

Jughead nods, shooting her a cheeky grin. “Crime, noir, really anything that fits my penchant for darkness.”

“Same,” Betty says, her eyes lighting up as she leans forward on her elbows. “It’s why I switched my major to journalism. There’s something about...solving a puzzle that is so...”

“Satisfying?”

Betty smiles at him, licking coffee off her spoon. “Exactly.”

They smirk at each other, Betty feeling a heat in her cheeks and an electricity between them that she hopes she isn’t imagining. 

The spell is broken when the group of jocks across the cafeteria lets out a huge scream from their usual table directly below the TV, presumably in reaction to the basketball game their eyes are all glued to. Betty and Jughead turn back to each other, laughing. 

“We always get stuck with the spring sports kids,” Jughead says, shaking his head. “Their coach makes them stay behind for extra practice.”

Indeed, the table comprises about half of the students on Betty and Jughead’s roster of residents staying behind for spring break: Moose Mason, Chuck Clayton, Reggie Mantle, and Trev Brown. Sitting beside Moose (with one hand perched possessively on Moose’s shoulder and the other scrolling through his phone) is Kevin Keller, Moose’s theater major boyfriend. A self-described “loyal hoe” and acquaintance of Betty’s, he’d already told Betty the week before that he’d rather stay behind with Moose than get white-girl-wasted in Fort Lauderdale with the single theater girls, which was his only other option this year.

“Well, and Kevin,” Betty points out to Jughead now, making him laugh.

“It still blows my mind that Moose and Kevin date,” Jughead says. “But they’ve been going strong for...what, two years now?”

Betty nods. “Kevin would rather stay behind with a crew of obnoxious jocks than go live it on up on some beach with a bunch of half-naked men. That’s love if I’ve ever seen it.”

Jughead laughs. “Well, hopefully they’ll keep their partying...and other activities...to a reasonable noise level so we don’t have to bother them.” 

Betty laughs, pulling the resident list she’d printed for herself out of her backpack and scanning the names. “Honestly, there’s only, like...ten, fifteen people staying behind? Is this typical?”

Jughead nods. “Yeah, sounds about right. Most people want to get away from here,” he shrugs, pausing to take a swig of coffee.

“Hey, Ron and Hermione,” a kind voice says, making Betty and Jughead turn.

“Who, us?” Betty says, smiling when she recognizes the familiar, friendly face of Josie McCoy, dressed in stylish workout clothes and balancing a tray of finished breakfast food. 

Josie laughs heartily. “You know, when Ron and Hermione were assigned to be prefects or whatever? I feel like you two are the prefects of Sweetwater for the break.”

Jughead grins. “I approve of the comparison.”

“Anyway, sorry to interrupt, but Betty, did you happen to write down what pages Professor Weatherbee added to the reading assignment in history?”

Betty nods, stooping down to pull out her planner and snapping a photo. “I’ll text it to you,” she says, gesturing toward the tray and water bottle Josie is balancing at the moment. 

“You’re a _godsend_ , Betty Cooper. A true saint,” Josie gushes.

__

____

Betty’s cheeks redden as she sends off the text. “Don’t worry about it.” She puts her phone down and turns back to Josie. “What are you up to this break?”

“Homework and perfecting my repertoire,” Josie says. “I’ve got some auditions for potential post-college gigs coming up, and I am not playing games. I had to stay behind to get focused.”

Betty and Jughead both nod. “I admire your commitment, Josie,” Betty says. “You’re gonna make us all proud one day.”

Josie beams. “Thanks, Betty.” Her phone rings, which Josie somehow manages to grab out of her pocket without knocking over her tray. “Ah, that’s my manager! I’ve gotta run! Great seeing you two.” She hurries off toward the dishwashing station, again somehow managing to answer her phone as she hands her dirty dishes to the dishwasher, yells a polite “thank you!”, and runs out the door. 

“Josie is one of the coolest people I know,” Jughead says, turning to Betty. 

“Absolutely same,” Betty says. “She hangs out with Veronica and me from time to time. At least that’s one person we know won’t give us any trouble.” She thinks for a second. “Honestly, the only person I can think of that Josie has ever clashed with is Ethel. I saw them get in a little tiff earlier in the year when Ethel came to her door and asked her to sing quieter.”

Jughead sighs. “I feel so sorry for Ethel about what she’s going through with her dad, but I’m guilty to say I was also a tiny bit relieved it’s not Ethel as the other RA who stayed behind this year,” Jughead admits. “She stays behind every year and she propositioned me when we stayed back together sophomore year. I was terrified she’d do it again this time.” 

Betty’s eyes widen. She didn’t know that...and is surprised to feel jealousy shoot sharply through her body. She typically gets along really well with Ethel, but suddenly her blood boils at the mere thought of interacting with her.

She scans the dining hall, looking for another of their residents to distract from her current reaction to the thought of Jughead and any other girl so much as touching. She spots Dilton Doiley and Ben Button, seated at their usual table in the corner with their Gryphons and Gargoyles board and cards spread out. They usually remain stationed there for all of breakfast and lunch, lost in their own world, playing and occasionally getting up for a refill. 

“Ah, Dilton and Ben,” Jughead says, following Betty’s gaze. “They asked me to join their club, but I declined.”

Betty’s head whips back around. “Wait, that’s a club? I thought it was just the two of them playing the game.”

Jughead rubs his neck awkwardly. “Yeah...I think Dilton’s president and Ben’s vice-president. Unfortunately, they haven’t really been able to recruit any other members. Occasionally I see Ethel hanging around them, but I think Ben might just be her latest...conquest.”

Betty makes a visibly disgusted face and Jughead bursts out laughing, practically choking on his water. “Why didn’t you tell me you make such funny faces, Betty Cooper?”

“Well, you know now.” Betty smiles, offering her plastic water glass up to his. “To learning new things about each other this week,” she challenges.

Jughead’s eyes soften, clinking his own glass against hers with a plastic thud. “Cheers,” he says.

Behind them, there’s the sound of a tray being slammed purposefully down on a table. Jughead and Betty both jump a little at the noise, turning to find the elusive and mysterious Evelyn Evernever plopping down into a two-seater by herself. She shoots both Betty and Jughead a smirk as she moves salad around on her plate. 

Betty rolls her eyes and turns back to Jughead. “That girl weirds me out,” she murmurs. 

“Who _doesn’t_ she weird out?” Jughead replies, leaning in closer toward Betty and lowering his voice as well. “Didn’t you have an incident with her?”

Vague memories of a report from Betty at a weekly RA meeting begin to float to the front of Jughead’s mind. Betty stiffens and nods, confirming his suspicions.

“She lived in a single on my floor first semester. She set the fire alarm in her room off, and I was on-duty so I obviously called campus security and came running to her room to make sure she was okay,” Betty explains. “When I got there, I found that she had _ten_ candles lit in her room! _Ten_! If it had been just one or two, I could’ve let it slide...”

Jughead nods. Of course, candles are completely banned from campus. But so is weed, and pretty much every RA in their building has a stash of that in their drawer. As senior RAs, but also just as students who mainly took the gig for the room-and-board money, they try their hardest _not_ to get their fellow students in trouble. 

But _ten_ candles setting off fire alarms? 

“How was I supposed to cover that up?” Betty whispers.

Jughead shakes his head, trying to picture one of the tiny singles in their building holding that many lit candles. It sounds like a firefighter’s worst nightmare. “Nothing you could’ve done,” Jughead agrees.

“Well, anyway,” Betty says, watching Evelyn out of the corner of her eye. The girl is eating salad and humming audibly, watching everyone in the cafeteria with her usual observant and calculating gaze. “She and her new suitemates Ginger and Tina live on Ethel’s floor now. And they all stayed behind for spring break.”

Jughead looks around the cafeteria, but the familiar faces of Ginger Lopez and Tina Patel have yet to materialize in the dining hall this morning. He registers them as inseparable and intimidating, usually walking around the halls of the building as if plotting something. “They’re weird too,” he murmurs, making Betty giggle. 

“They definitely _don’t_ like me. Like, as a collective group,” Betty admits, laughing.

Jughead whistles lowly, leaning back slightly in his chair as Betty takes another generous swig of her coffee. “Well, Betty Cooper,” Jughead says. “We’re in for quite a week.”

  
  
  


**sunday night**

Betty’s having trouble getting used to how eerily quiet it is when conducting rounds with so few residents in the dorm. 

Everything seemed serene on the bottom two floors, but as they round the corner to Betty’s floor, she feels a chill in the air, making her halt and look around suspiciously.

Jughead pauses in his tracks too. “Do you hear that? Like someone’s knocking in the distance?”

She cranes her neck, cupping her hand over her ear. _Tap, tap, tap._ It sounds like something is knocking continuously against the side of the building. She points toward the source of the sound, which is, strangely, right near Veronica’s room.

Jughead carefully walks forward. “Let’s go check it out,” he whispers.

Part of Betty wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of this situation, but most of her feels creeped out. She follows behind Jughead as they turn the corner where a cluster of six single rooms, including Veronica’s, sit in a row.

Betty’s heart is racing when the hall comes into view as she braces herself for an intruder or animal or some other entity that isn’t supposed to be here.

The moment is quickly over, both letting out big sighs of relief when they find no one standing in the hallway. Just a hall window that had somehow been left open, causing one of the loose panes to flap against the building over and over again in the March wind.

Betty rests her hand on her chest, her heart still beating wildly. “Why did I just get a burst of adrenaline from that?” she says, laughing.

Jughead laughs too. “I was also feeling really creeped out,” he admits, wringing out his hands and jumping up and down on the balls of his feet a little.

When he finally stops in place, it’s with a smirk on his face. “Now, Cooper, it’s time for the real RA work to begin.”

“And that would be?”

“Closing this heavyass window. Looks like a two-person job.”

Betty laughs and they work together to wrench the ancient window closed. Jughead locks it with a flinch of pain. “Who do you think opened this thing anyway?” Betty says, wiping dust off her hands.

“We should launch a full-scale investigation,” Jughead jokes, though he’s only ever about half-joking when it comes to investigations. “No, but my money is on one of the Riverdale College ghosts.”

Betty grins, leaning her elbow on the windowsill. “Oh, you don’t have to convince me that there’s paranormal activity in Riverdale. Even just walking around town, I have found this place super spooky since freshman year.”

Jughead grins, his eyes lighting up as he, too, settles his elbow on the windowsill, and leans in toward her. “Okay, I’m gonna need to know more.”

Betty immediately tells him about the night sophomore year that she and Veronica swear they heard two or three knocks at their door but continually no one was there; about the abandoned house she’d found on the edge of town filled with boxes of yellowing case files and decades-old photos of a nuclear family; the time she thought she saw a deer disappear into the night on the road that leads to Greendale.

Jughead listens intently, maybe more intently than anyone ever has to Betty about these kind of happenings, which her friends usually dismiss as anomalies and coincidences, tricks of the eye. He confesses his love of all things true crime, noir, and occult, and Betty’s eyes are soon lighting up too as Jughead tells a story about a ghost he swears he saw in the middle of the night in the library last year.

Sure, when on rounds together before, they’ve teased each other about book recommendations and made surface-level jokes about their respective majors. But never had either of them dared to push further, to find out if there was more there for them to talk about. Now, it’s clear they could get lost in talking to each other...if they want. 

They quickly discover that both of them have separately spent hours of time at the Riverdale public library researching the small town’s mysterious history, and soon they’re exchanging discoveries. As Jughead shares a tidbit Betty had never seen about a notorious serial killer in town called the Black Hood, Betty looks down at her phone to realize thirty minutes have passed.

“Shit,” Betty says. “We should probably patrol your floor at some point.” A slight blush tints her cheek.

“Conversation to be continued another time?” Jughead asks as he gestures for Betty to lead the way to the stairwell.

“Absolutely,” Betty says, internally squealing. _He’s flirting, right? He has to be. Right?_

Betty can’t help but smile as they head up to the top and final floor where Jughead lives. She wants to ask him what he’s been up to the last two nights. What could have him wandering the halls and keeping him from needing her company for rounds? But she’s afraid to disturb the natural flirtation they’ve developed. It had been steadily developing all year, in a way, each time they found themselves assigned to be on duty simultaneously. But something felt different now. Since campus had emptied out for spring break, the spark between them seemed more pronounced with every interaction, and Betty is nothing if not along for the ride.

So, instead of pressing him, when they patrol the entire floor and determine it all clear, Betty simply says good night with a longing smile and drops Jughead at his door. (But not before he throws in a couple jokes about the ghost helping him with his thesis.) 

  
  
  


**monday morning**

At 8:30 on the dot, Betty is reminded that she promised Kevin a coffee date. 

Standing in line at the campus cafe a mere hour and a half hour later, Kevin informs her 8 am is the acceptable hour to begin texting friends. 

“Shh,” Betty says. “I can’t tell you why you’re wrong until after I’ve had some coffee.”

Kevin laughs and patiently waits until Betty is settled across from him at his favorite table next to the window. He watches Betty take a couple tentative bites of her coffee cake before looking at her expectantly.

Betty smiles. “Yes, Kevin? How is your spring break treating you so far?”

Kevin puts up his hand as if to silence Betty. “Enough with the small talk, let’s get down to business.”

Betty’s eyes widen, but Kevin is off again before she can form a coherent question in response.

“You and Broody Writer RA were lookin’ real flirty and real cute in the dining hall on Saturday morning,” Kevin says bluntly.

Betty’s face turns scarlet immediately. She scans the campus cafe quickly, but no one she knows is nearby. Kevin laughs. “Okay, so you def have a crush.”

Betty shrugs, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m still feeling it out.”

Kevin shakes his head vigorously. “I was watching you two the other day, girl, and he is _definitely_ into you. I’m telling you, make a move. You two are too beautiful together for you not to.”

Betty laughs and then makes a meager attempt to change the subject that Kevin, surprisingly, lets her run with. Before she knows it, Betty is laughing with Kevin about the antics of various jocks that he must put up with for Moose.

···

Revived by the coffee, cake, and conversation, Betty scrunches up her napkin and moves to stand up. “As fun as this has been, I need to go work on my capstone.”

Kevin sighs. “Life of a nerd.”

Betty narrows her eyes at him. “I’ve taken just about enough of your teasing for one day, Kevin Keller,” she says, laughing, as she throws out her trash.

“Make a move!” Kevin calls after Betty as she walks toward the door, waving goodbye and shaking her head. 

···

Given it’s barely noon, Betty is shocked to find Jughead at his usual table in the back of the library. Feeling emboldened by Kevin, she figures she can at least go sit near him, maybe flirt a little.

“A little early for you to be up and kicking, huh, Jug?” she says, plopping her backpack down on the seat diagonal from his.

He grins when he sees her. “Wanted an early start today. A near-empty campus is a beautiful thing, and it must be savored. Especially when one is attempting to finish a fiction thesis that only seems to get longer every time I go back to the outline.”

Betty laughs as she takes out her laptop. “I completely feel you. My capstone is gonna be the death of me.”

“Well, not to be rude, but I’m kind of in a _flow_ ,” Jughead says in a light tone.

Betty smiles as she opens her capstone outline. “Not rude at all. Hopefully your productive energy will rub off on me.” 

“Well, on that note, happy studying,” Jughead says, tipping an imaginary hat off to Betty, before returning his fingers to the keys.

They sit near each other typing away for an hour, occasionally exchanging glances. It’s decidedly nice. 

Eventually Betty’s phone alarm goes off, reminding her she has to run and meet a professor for coffee. 

“See you tonight for rounds?” Betty asks as she slings her backpack over her shoulder. 

Tipping back in his chair slightly, Jughead quips: “Where else would I be?” 

  
  
  


**monday night**

During rounds, Jughead’s feeling cocky. He spends their stroll along the bottom two floors bragging about how productive he was during his marathon library session earlier, while Betty teases him, bumping shoulders slightly in the near-empty hallways.

As they reach the third floor, Jughead pulls a keyring out of his pocket, pausing in front of a closet Betty has probably passed a million times without noticing.

“Why are we stopping?” Betty asks, eyeing him curiously as he thumbs through all the keys stacked on the ring.

“Ever been inside this closet, Betts?” he asks, still concentrated on the shuffle of the keys.

Betty laughs, her face warming at the nickname as she places a hand on her hips. “Uh, no. Isn’t it just a custodial closet?”

Jughead laughs, finally locating the correct key and holding it between his fingers purposefully before wedging it into the lock and opening the door. 

It is, indeed, just a custodial closet. Jughead pulls on a string to illuminate the tiny room’s single lightbulb and grabs a roll of toilet paper off a shelf before turning to Betty with a smirk and handing her the roll.

“You never know when you’ll need a spare roll of toilet paper,” Jughead says, making Betty giggle as he locks the closet door behind them. 

She gives him an expectant look and he smiles sheepishly. “I’ve been an RA since sophomore year. My friend Toni was a senior last year, and she gave me some keys she’d...acquired...during her time here,” he explains, choosing his words carefully. “It’s kind of an RA tradition.” 

Betty nods, crossing her arms over her chest to try to distract from how aroused this information is making her feel. She internally notes to squirrel it away for potential future investigative journalism reasons. Outwardly, she smirks at Jughead. “I’m impressed.”

He smiles. “I was hoping you would be. But that was just the first thing I wanted to show you.”

Betty raises her eyebrows as she follows Jughead, patrolling the third floor and heading up the stairwell to the fourth and final floor. They hustle through their room checks quickly, Betty quickening her pace with every corridor they clear. Jughead has Betty on her toes now, wondering when he’ll stop again and pull out one of his keys to show her some possibly half-assed but definitely charming surprise.

They finally stop outside another nondescript door, this one a little more worn, reminding Betty of heaving that dusty hall window closed the night before.

“Another closet?” she asks, raising her eyebrows at Jughead as he grins back at her.

“You doubt me, Cooper,” he says, placing his hand across his chest dramatically before pulling his keyring out again. This time, he finds the key quickly. Betty crosses her arms across her chest as she observes what looks like a well-practiced routine.

He slots the key in the lock, turning back to wink at Betty before turning the doorknob and pulling on another string. The light flickers on to reveal not another closet, but a stairwell. Betty’s mouth widens as Jughead turns back to gauge her reaction.

“You still coming?” he asks, a twinkle in his eye that makes Betty nod quickly. He lets the door to the hallway close and starts climbing the creaky old stairs. Betty follows him, practically holding her breath in anticipation.

At the top of the stairs, they meet another door. Jughead stoops down to grab a dirty old brick off the ground before fitting another of his keys into the lock and opening it out onto what Betty quickly realizes is the roof. She gasps in pleasant surprise, immediately enamored by the blanket of stars and twinkling lights of Riverdale and Greendale spread out before them. 

Behind her, Jughead props the door open with the brick, before standing back up and dusting his hands off on his pants. He grins when he notices Betty watching him. He doesn’t usually show off with—well, anyone— _but this is Betty Cooper we’re talking about._

Instead of saying anything sentimental about where they are, though, Jughead chooses to point at the propped-open door and say, “So, weird thing about this roof: I’m not sure why, but this door will definitely lock behind you. Like, lock you _in_. And you need a key to get out that I do not seem to have on this keyring I inherited.” He pats his pant pockets.

Betty cocks her head to the side, intrigued by this fact. “A door with a different lock on either end?” she says. “That sounds…”

“Super Riverdale?” Jughead supplies and Betty laughs, nodding.

“Just like we were saying last night. Things are either old...or mysterious and spooky with seemingly no reason.”

“Or both,” Jughead says, gesturing back toward the brick propping the door open. “One time I came up here and got myself locked in. I don’t even want to tell you how much of a saga it was to get myself back out.”

Betty looks impressed and curious. 

Jughead shakes his head at her challenging gaze. “Let’s just say it involved Archie Andrews and keys falling in a bush.”

Betty throws her head back laughing as she pieces that together. 

“So, anyway, this is the roof,” Jughead says, gesturing around. 

Betty has a look of complete awe and amazement on her face as she whirls around on the balls of her feet, taking in the view. Jughead beams at her, feeling warm and proud to have been able to make her smile like that. 

“I like to write up here,” Jughead explains when she finally stops in place, pulling a guilty-looking face that Betty finds completely adorable. 

Betty feels bold. _He’s showing me his_ place, she thinks. She bumps his hip and smirks at him. “Why didn’t you show me this place sooner?”

Jughead cocks his head to the side as he grins at her. “I needed to get a couple solid nights of writing in before I was too tempted to bring you up here with me.”

Betty breaths out slowly, trying to keep her cool at the potential implication. “So _this_ is what you’ve been doing the last two nights?”

Jughead nods, grinning sheepishly. “I needed to get a certain amount of pages in to follow my schedule,” he explains. “So when I saw the weather would be nice enough to write up here a couple nights in a row, I needed to get up here to isolate myself. Gotta stay on top of my thesis plan.”

Betty laughs at the intensity of his tone. “Well, if you wrote it down in your planner, then you must do it,” she teases.

“Don’t make fun, Betty, planners are sacred,” Jughead says, shooting her a challenging look. “And I know you would agree.”

“Okay, you got me,” Betty is impressed. “How did you know?”

Jughead shrugs. “I’m observant. I guess it’s what makes me a good RA...and writer.”

They both pause in a comfortable silence, leaning their elbows over a ledge and looking out at the dark spring night. 

“No, but really,” Jughead says softly a couple minutes later. “I had a burst of inspiration here last semester and I was convinced it would happen again.”

“And did it?”

Indeed, fueled by the breakfast they’d shared together in the dining hall Saturday morning, Jughead had managed to get back on track over the past couple nights.

“Yes,” he finally answers, quietly but firmly.

“Where exactly do you write?” she asks, gesturing around. “It’s a big roof, after all.”

Jughead grins. “I’ll show you,” he says, presenting them forward with his own sweeping hand gesture and making Betty giggle.

He registers a low brick wall he always marks as the halfway point between the door and his favorite writing spot. He’s already looking ahead, practically humming in anticipation of showing her the little nook behind a similar brick wall to this one, where he’d even hung up a little newspaper comic strip featuring a character he swears looks like Archie, to make him smile when he’s having writer’s block. It’s a personal corner of the world for him, and he hopes Betty will appreciate it.

“Wait,” Betty says, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder to stop him. He turns around, a confused look on his face.

“What’s up…” he says, his voice trailing off as he takes in the image of Betty crouched over, looking closely at the halfway-point wall.

“There are markings here, Jug,” she says. “Do you know what they mean?”

Jughead shoots her a weird look, rushing to join her. “What marking….” He finally takes in what had stopped Betty in her tracks.

On the wall, two little circles are drawn, each one extending off a curved line, almost as if there are two 9s encountering each other in space. Or, a dirty part of Betty thinks, like a 69. The symbol appears to be painted directly on the wall with measured, medium brushstrokes in a white color. Next to it there’s a line of five stick figures, painted as if holding hands, each one identical in size and shape as if painted with a stencil. 

“Wow, each figure is a different color,” Betty murmurs, pulling out her phone and snapping photos. _Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Violet._

Jughead grins. “Someone just morphed into a journalist before my very eyes.”

Betty winks. “When duty calls!” 

Jughead laughs but then squints, moving forward toward the symbols in confusion before taking some photos for himself.

“What _is_ this symbol?”

Betty taps her finger against her chin. “It looks familiar,” she says. Jughead murmurs in agreement before they both pause to think. 

Betty breaks the silence first. “Maybe something from astrology? You know anything about that?”

Jughead laughs, shaking his head. “I haven’t caught on to that particular trend.”

Betty tries to think of what the hipster girls she follows on Instagram post about, but nothing rings a bell. Just incessant complaints about mercury being in retrograde at the worst possible moments. 

“You think it’s fresh?” Betty asks, touching her hand to the wall and rubbing her thumb against her finger. The paint doesn’t come off.

“Or maybe it’s old?” she suggests. “It’s not too faded though.” Betty and Jughead both continue to peer at it. 

“What material do you think it is?” Betty murmurs.

Jughead places his own hand against the strange, possibly-astrological symbol. “Paint?”

“Or chalk?”

“Nah, chalk would probably come off on our hands.”

“Maybe an industrial chalk.”

Jughead smiles at her quick comeback. “I have honestly no idea which one looks most probable,” he says. 

Betty bursts out laughing, hands on her hips as she turns to smirk at Jughead. “Neither do I.”

“Do you think someone else besides you has a key up here?” Betty asks after a beat. 

“It’s entirely possible,” Jughead admits. “I would guess an RA though, and we’re the only ones in this dorm here right now.”

“Unless…” Betty says. “Ethel or Midge had the keys...and they gave them to someone staying back over break? Or someone stole them?”

Jughead’s eyes widen. “Oh my god,” he says. “It’s possible.”

“Are you _sure_ these markings weren’t here before break?” Betty asks.

Jughead blushes. “Look, I come up here a lot,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I definitely would’ve noticed and I was up here last night writing. I went to my spot on the other side of this wall.” He points in the direction they’d been walking before Betty’s glimpse of the markings caused them to halt. 

“Someone staying in the building over break had to have done this,” Jughead finally says, stretching his hands out to tame the nervous energy he always gets when he discovers a new puzzle to solve.

Betty is buzzing too, smiling when she and Jughead catch each other’s excited gazes.

“Wait, we should go to my spot,” Jughead says.

Betty flashes him an amused look. “Really?” she teases.

“There could be more! What if they disturbed my weird comic strip?”

“You have a weird comic strip? Okay, you’ve convinced me.”

They’re laughing by the time they reach the other brick wall where Jughead had pinned up the comic strip that reminds him of Archie. Betty bursts out laughing when she sees it, immediately agreeing with the resemblance.

They’re both still laughing when Betty’s phone rings. She rolls her eyes and mouths an apology when she sees it’s Veronica.

“Hello?” she says, still giggling as Jughead makes faces behind her back.

She shakes her head at him, shooing him away with her hand. He concedes, inspecting the rest of the little area where he usually writes, but finding it completely undisturbed and lacking any strange markings.

“I like to hear you laughing, B,” Veronica says to Betty. “I called because Cheryl and I are up early, getting ready to see the catacombs and we miss you! I thought you’d still be up.”

Cheryl shrieking with laughter and the sound of a male Parisian voice emanates from the background and Betty holds the phone slightly away from her ear, rolling her eyes.

“All clear over here, Betts!” Jughead calls from across the roof, causing Betty to giggle and give him a thumbs up.

“Oh my god, is that a boy, Betty?” Veronica gushes.

“Uh, yes…” Betty says, blushing as Jughead watches her from where he’s standing a couple feet away.

“We will leave you alone, then! I expect details tomorrow! Mwah!”

Betty walks over to Jughead. “You didn’t seem too thrilled by the content of that phone call,” Jughead observes in a neutral tone. 

“Veronica and Cheryl were calling because they’re going to my pick on the itinerary today,” she explains.

Jughead frowns. “That sucks.” He pauses. “So, what was your pick?”

Betty beams at the very thought: “The catacombs of Paris,” she says wistfully. “Tunnels of old bones under the city.”

Jughead is beaming back at her. “Oh, I’ve read about it, and I’ve always wanted to go when I eventually make it to Paris.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s right up there with making your standard pilgrimage to Shakespeare & Company.”

“That sounds amazing,” Betty says, sighing. “I hope I make it to Europe soon.”

“You’ve never been?” Jughead looks shocked.

Betty shakes her head. “This was supposed to be my first trip.”

Jughead nods. “I’ve never been either,” he says. “But I’ve got about a million places I’d like to go.”

“Same,” Betty says, looking off into the distance wistfully. “I’d love to just go, do it cheap, stay in hostels.”

“Eat Brie and French bread in parks with a bottle of wine,” Jughead says. “Just a backpack of clothes on my back, and so many notebooks.”

“ _So_ many notebooks,” Betty agrees.

They both fall silent, smiling at the fantasy.

Jughead laughs, finally breaking the silence to note that they totally got off track from their mystery. 

Betty nods. “Well, it’s getting late. We’ll have to keep digging to figure out who staying here over break might have the keys. Or who might have a reason to write strange markings on the roof,” Betty says, thinking out loud. 

“Or any leads on what the markings could even _mean_ ,” Jughead adds.

“Exactly.” They nod at each other solemnly. _A team._

Betty stops them about halfway back to the door, admitting that she wants to take in one more greedy glimpse at the view of the mysterious little town. He’s happy to indulge her.

It’s mostly dark at this hour, with little pinpricks of light representing the small but mighty landmarks of Riverdale. Pop’s Diner. The Bijou. A faint flickering from the Whyte Wyrm to the south.

Jughead just watches her, the wind whipping her blonde hair and her face painted with childlike delight. He’s nothing short of amazed that he is somehow spending his spring break with this ethereal creature.

  
  
  


**tuesday afternoon**

Betty and Jughead practically run into each other outside the library, Betty rushing down the stairs of the building with her backpack slung haphazardly over one shoulder. Jughead balances three books as he heads into the library in search of a needed change of scenery as an antidote to his writer’s block.

“Betty!” Jughead says, softly touching her arm to slow her down. He’s seen Betty buzzing around on campus as if on a mission before, and she’s always a force to be reckoned with.

“Jug!” Betty says breathlessly, a smile crossing her face as she stops in her tracks.

Jughead grins. “I was hoping I’d run into you before rounds,” he admits, adjusting his grip on the books under his arm. He lowers his voice and moves in a little closer. “I did some recon this morning.”

Betty’s eyes light up and they both move slightly away so they’re a little further from the library entrance. “Me too,” she says. “You first.”

Jughead can’t help the grin that has been permanently plastered on his face since he spotted Betty. His friends always make fun of him when he’s trying to investigate something. 

“So, I did some recon with Dilton and Ben in the dining hall this morning,” Jughead explains as Betty listens intently.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Jughead continues as Betty immediately nods. “But I had a Gryphons and Gargoyles phase in high school.”

Betty lets out a laugh. “Sorry, sorry, not funny. So you went undercover in the G&G game.”

Jughead nods, smiling. “I was able to get a good look at all the quest cards they’re working with right now,” he says. At Betty’s look of confusion, he elaborates, “Dilton and Ben are at a point in their game where their quests are lasting like, weeks, they’re so complex.”

Betty nods. “Got it, that makes sense.”

“Anyway, I didn’t find anything on the board or on any of the cards that match the markings we found,” he says. “I asked them what they were up to this break, but they didn’t give me much. Honestly, they seemed a little spooked by me.”

Betty’s eyes narrowed. “So did Tina!”

Jughead’s eyes light up. “You nailed down the elusive Tina Patel?”

Betty nods, tilting her head in the direction of the library. “I just worked up an appetite questioning her in there.” She pats her stomach to emphasize her hunger.

Jughead shakes his head, immediately remembering what Betty said on Saturday about Tina not being a huge fan of hers. He can only imagine the exchange, especially given how intense Betty can get when she’s determined about something.

“I know Ginger and Tina are very into astrology,” Betty explains. “I figured I should follow the lead if only to rule it out as a possibility.”

Jughead nods enthusiastically. “I like your style, Cooper.”

“I was going to the library to check out some astrology books, to be honest, and it was just a bonus when I found Tina alone at a table,” Betty pauses to catch her breath. “I tried to play it off like I’d just gotten really into astrology. Sat down at her table and told her I’d heard she was the best person on campus at doing star charts.”

Recounting a reconnaissance mission is basically the hottest thing Betty has ever said to him, but Jughead tries to keep his cool as he nods and listens intently. “You’re a natural journalist, Betty, honestly.”

Betty grins. “Why thank you,” she says. “But hopefully my future interview subjects don’t hate me as much as Tina does.”

Jughead groans. “No luck?”

“She rolled her eyes at me and told me she was too busy working on a project for one of her classes to do anyone’s chart, but _especially_ mine,” Betty says, sighing. “I tried asking some follow-up questions about my sign and stuff, but she wasn’t having it. Totally tight-lipped. So I gave up, but I did check out a few astrology books.”

“Well, we’ll have to try Ginger, too. And there’s always the Internet, of course,” Jughead says, tapping his chin thoughtfully with his finger. 

“Definitely,” Betty says. “But Ginger may prove just as elusive as her bitchy sidekick.”

Jughead laughs. “Tell me how you really feel, please, Betts.”

“Again, I’m hangry, which is why I’m on my way to indulge myself in some food that isn’t from the dining hall.”

“And I’m a slave to the books,” Jughead says, lovingly patting the books under his arm. “I’ll see you for rounds and we can regroup?”

Betty grins. “I’ll be much more charming once I’ve eaten, I promise.”

Jughead gulps a little, grinning. “Can’t wait.”

  
  
  


**tuesday night**

Through mutual unspoken agreement, Betty and Jughead rush through their rounds.

On the top floor, Jughead tilts his head toward the ceiling and asks if she wants to go on the roof to check out the markings in person again.

“I feel like I’ve been staring at the shitty-quality photo of those symbols on my phone screen for too long,” he says. 

Betty laughs and agrees. “Let’s hope seeing it in the flesh again will inspire a breakthrough.”

This time, they head right for the brick wall. As they crouch down in front of it, they immediately notice something very small has been added to the messages they’d discovered the night before. 

In the same white material as the possibly-astrological symbol, there is now painted a series of numbers, a veritable smorgasbord of Roman numerals, Arabic numbers, and what looks like a couple tally marks.

They stare hopelessly at the wall. “Okay, so it’s definitely someone staying behind for break,” Jughead finally states the obvious.

Betty nods. “Confirmed.”

They both brandish their cell phones, zooming in and out as they take multiple photos of the markings. Betty takes her backpack off her shoulders and starts unpacking her laptop and the books she’d taken out of the library that afternoon.

“I guess we’re in a for an even longer night than we already thought,” Jughead says, eyeing the supplies Betty is unpacking. “Good thing I brought just the thing to help!” he adds dramatically before pulling a joint out of his back pocket. 

Betty’s eyes brighten. “Ooh, very sneaky for an RA.”

“I figured if we wanted to open our minds to solve the riddle...you do smoke, right?”

Betty nods enthusiastically. “Oh, I do. Often. And _especially_ when I’m trying to work out a puzzle.” 

Jughead grins at her as she bends down to pull a final object out of her bag, a soft blue blanket that she spreads on the ground. 

“It’s a perfect night for a joint,” she adds, tightening her arms across her chest. It’s dipped down to a cool 50 degrees, but there’s no wind, and they’re both dressed in sweatshirts and jackets in anticipation of a full night of sleuthing.

“Okay,” Betty says as they both settle themselves on the blanket and Jughead flicks his lighter. “So we have the message itself and we have all the people staying here.” 

“Let’s try to decode the message,” Jughead says. “Maybe it’ll make it easier to identify a motive and a suspect.” 

Betty nods. “Fair.” She pauses to watch Jughead spark the joint and take a first hit, letting out white smoke with a satisfied breath.

Betty carefully inspects the joint as it comes her way. “I’m impressed by your rolling skills,” she says as she brings it to her lips.

After a few hits to get them started, they put the joint out for the time being and start poring over the astrology books Betty had checked out of the library. They hold diagrams and figures up against the symbol.

It only takes them until the second book to figure out that the 6-9 figure represents an abstract symbol of a crab, the sign for Cancer. Jughead had initially been fooled by the more straightforward crab figure he’d found in the first book he’d opened. 

“Cancer,” Betty says slowly, letting the word roll off her tongue.

“What does it mean?” Jughead asks while thumbing through pages.

Betty rips paper out of her notebook. “Let’s write down all the words we find associated with it,” she says, stretching her arms out and looking down at the book.

“Crab,” Jughead says.

Betty laughs. “Yes, we can start there.”

“What kind of sign is it?” Jughead says.

“Water,” Betty immediately answers, reading off the page in front of her.

Jughead narrows his eyes. “That seems significant. Water. Sweetwater? Sweetwater...River? The water supply?”

Betty laughs, writing each of his thoughts down quickly on the paper. 

“It also says here it’s a...negative sign,” Betty says. “That’s strange.”

Jughead shrugs as Betty jots it down. “The birth dates seem to be roughly mid June to mid July,” Jughead notes. “Summer solstice? Summer?”

Betty nods, writing down his thoughts before they both return to scanning through the books.

“Look,” Betty says, jabbing at the book in front of her to point to a particular sentence. “It says that the crab of cancer sheds its shell.”

Jughead and Betty both screw up their faces in concentration.

“Shedding a shell. So, a change,” Betty says. “Like you were saying, solstice. That could be a...change?”

“Or a cycle. A new cycle?” Jughead says as Betty continues to move her hand across their rapidly-filling notebook paper.

She rips a second page out. “That kind of reminds me of...the moon? The moon has cycles. We found the markings on the roof, under the night sky, after all.”

Jughead nods. “True.” 

Betty opens her laptop and tries to get on Google, already impatient with relying on the books. “Ugh, the WiFi doesn’t work up here.”

Jughead nods, grinning. “Another good reason to come up here to write. Lack of distraction.”

Betty laughs. “Touché.”

They both return to flipping through the books, occasionally writing down a stray thought or motif that seems related. 

Eventually, they reach a standstill. Betty is sitting cross-legged on the blanket, staring thoughtfully into the distance, when Jughead finally closes his book. 

He clears his throat. “Maybe it’s time to fire up the other half of that joint?”

Betty’s face brightens as she nods. “You read my mind.”

Jughead lifts his lighter to the tip and watches it catch fire. He lets out a big cleansing breath with his first hit and passes to Betty. She takes a hit and then, as if struck by inspiration, gets to her feet and walks closer to the brick wall, their three pieces of scribbled notebook paper in her other hand.

Jughead comes to join her, watching as she lets out a big hit and stares at the rainbow figures through the cloud of white smoke. Betty turns to Jughead for only a second to pass off the joint before returning her gaze to the wall, letting her eyes trail from the strange numbers to the little Cancer symbol back to the rainbow figures with intertwined hands.

“What could water or moon cycles or...marine life”—Jughead lets out a big laugh at that one—“have to do with this roof or this campus?” Betty says.

“Astrology’s definitely _in_ ,” Jughead says, furrowing his brow as he tries to figure out how any of this fits into the campus cultural zeitgeist.

He breathes out a second hit and hands the joint back to Betty. They make eye contact as he passes it off and Betty feels an electricity in the pit of her stomach when their fingers brush. 

“The figures being rainbow could be something,” Betty suggests. “If Kevin is any example, it seems a lot of the queer community on campus identifies with astrology.” 

“So you think it could just be some sort of offering to the moon on behalf of the LGBTQIA alliance?” Jughead says, half joking.

Betty shakes her head, in her mind running through the picture of that particular club, which she’d laid out for an issue of the campus newspaper the semester before. “None of the active members who live in this dorm are staying behind for break,” she says, sighing, and taking a long pull on the joint. 

They both give the wall another good, hard look as they pass the joint back and forth in a contemplative silence.

When it finally goes out and Jughead has flicked it off the roof, Betty returns to their blanket and spreads the pages out. Their now-insane-looking word web has expanded onto four notebook pages.

“We’ve hit a dead end.” Betty is the first to admit it.

Jughead smiles at her through half-lidded eyes, happy to have returned to his spot on Betty’s incredibly soft blanket. “We need the help of the Internet,” he agrees. “Especially for those new numbers.” 

Both decently stoned by this point, neither remembers how they got on the topic. But soon Betty and Jughead start talking about that dreaded subject, the one everyone’s families broach politely at holiday dinners. Nails on a chalkboard for a college senior. But here, sitting cross-legged, face to face on a soft blue blanket, under the stars on a cozy March night, Betty doesn’t mind the question when Jughead poses it. 

(Later, she’ll be unable to remember if she asked first or he did.)

“I know it’s cliche, but I’ve always wanted to be a New Yorker,” Betty admits and Jughead blushes when his mouth widens in surprise, words tumbling out in a stoned, excited trail of “I feel the same way.”

In the months they’ve known each other, Betty and Jughead never realized they were both from small towns in New York, like many of the souls who had wandered to the limiting confines of Riverdale College, seeking familiarity. 

“I’m ready to live somewhere where there’s a little more anonymity,” Jughead says, training his eye on one particular star in the sky to keep himself from blatantly staring at Betty, which has become harder to do since they sparked up that joint.

He’s noticed Betty looking at him, too, though. He can’t be imagining it. She bites her lip and looks at him out of the corner of her eye before scooting slightly toward him, maintaining eye contact all the while. Jughead gulps, moving his hand so it brushes over Betty’s on the blanket.

He breathes in deep, tingling when the smell of Betty’s shampoo comes wafting back in, they’re so close. Would she taste like this? Familiar and comforting and exhilarating and new all at once. Jughead feels the pressure of Betty’s hand on top of his as she moves herself forward, propelling herself—he thinks—into his lap. He dares to close one of his eyes, bracing for the moment he’s been dreaming of for months...

RIIIIIIIIIIING!

Betty’s ringtone is set on loud. That much is clear to them. It startles them both apart like shrapnel, as she apologizes and blurts out that she’s so sorry, she’s just used to turning the volume up while on duty in case an emergency call comes in. 

In a different context, Jughead would make a joke about how Betty is the more responsible RA, but he’s feeling antsy and anxious. _Jughead, Interrupted. Jesus, Jug, get a grip._

Betty lets out a slight “ow” as her elbow hits the hard roof floor in her haste to answer the phone. Jughead’s face reddens, rubbing the back of his neck as he watches Betty finally pick up the phone on the fourth ring, still looking at him with a matching blush on her face. 

“Hello?” she says shakily. Her face immediately changes with recognition and concern. 

Jughead’s eyes meet hers, trying to signal whether he needs to go into full-RA mode. Which would be difficult considering how hard that joint is hitting him, but hey, he’d managed higher before.

“Veronica,” Betty says firmly, shaking Jughead out of his thoughts. _It’s Veronica calling,_ he thinks, as if lecturing himself. _From Paris._

“One second, V,” Betty says, listening for another ten seconds before putting her hand over the mouthpiece and turning to Jughead. She registers everything in short clauses in her stoned and exhilarated state. _I almost kissed Jughead. V thinks she left it on the counter. What is_ it _again? Oh, right, her dad’s locket. Or, the locket_ from _her dad, rather. The one he gave her when she was a baby? No, when she turned sixteen. I have to go get it. Holy shit but I almost kissed Jughead. No, I have a spare key. Take care of V first. She’s going through a hard time._

“I’m so sorry,” Betty finally says, letting her eyes trail greedily over Jughead’s face. _I want to stay here._ “I have to deal with this. Veronica. She’s beside herself.”

Jughead nods, unable to keep his face from visibly falling. “Text me if I can help,” he says weakly. Betty flashes him a smile before rushing off, still on the phone with Veronica. She doesn’t even pause to take her blanket, doesn’t have the chance to process what just almost happened with Jughead.

Jughead sits back down, too stoned and high on adrenaline from _almost kissing Betty Cooper_ to leave the roof just yet. Besides, a small part of him hopes she might return after she gets off the phone with Veronica. Maybe they could...pick up where they’d left off. 

He waits an hour, but she doesn’t return.

  
  
  


**wednesday morning**

Betty’s up early, resolving to work out her feelings on the elliptical at the campus gym. She squirts water into her mouth and nods polite hello’s to Moose and Kevin, who are mid-morning workout, as she passes them to head toward the locker room. 

She pauses when she spots Jughead setting a water bottle and towel down on a bench next to one of the treadmills. Her stomach clenches at how toned he looks in the tank top he wears to the gym. Her body gravitates toward him almost subconsciously. 

“Hey, Jug,” she says, her heart dropping when the look he flashes her is streaked with obvious hurt. “I’m so sorry,” she says to his silence as he folds his towel again, refusing to make eye contact. “Veronica’s been through a lot with her family lately, and I’ve been trying to be there for her as best I can. She was having a panic attack and our other friend was out and...well, to make a long story short, she kept me on the phone for two hours.”

Jughead nods, his jaw still clenched but his eyes softening a little as he takes in her story. He clears his throat. “No worries,” is all he can manage to say, casting his eyes downwards again. 

Betty’s face falls a little but Jughead doesn’t falter from his stance. “I was sad to miss out on hanging out with you,” Betty tries, looking purposefully at him. “What are your plans for the day?”

Jughead gestures around the gym. “This,” he shrugs. “More library. Gotta stay on schedule.”

The answers feel more like grunts than replies, so Betty curtly nods. “Maybe I’ll come find you in the library later,” she says. 

He shrugs noncommittally, still feeling burned from the night before. “Maybe,” he says, letting Betty supply the last word with an overly-chirpy “see you later” before she turns to head toward the locker room, face red with embarrassment as Jughead stares moodily after her. 

As Betty lets the hot stream of the shower wash the sweat off her, she thinks, _Fuck, he hates me. The one time I try to actually make a move on Veronica’s advice, the bitch unintentionally pussyblocks me._

Back in the gym, Jughead adjusts his towel one more time, scowling as he attempts to shake the myriad of feelings that interaction with Betty had left him with. He stretches out his arms, trying to get back in the zone to work out when he feels a gaze on him. He looks up to find Moose and Kevin staring at him with concerned expressions on their faces. “What?” he says roughly. 

“What’s going on with you and our dear Betty?” Kevin asks pointedly. “That looked like a little lovers’ quarrel.”

Jughead shakes his head. “She blew me off last night,” he says. “I can’t get involved with people like that, who act like they’re in it with you one minute and then float away the next. My ex Sabrina was like that, and it turned out she was putting on a show the whole time. I’m not setting myself up for another heartbreak.”

Kevin and Moose look surprised to have gotten Jughead to open up so quickly. Kevin moves forward, cautiously placing a hand on Jughead’s shoulder. “Look, I get it. Opening up to someone is hard. Moose can tell you, the start of our relationship wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies.”

“Well, there were some rainbows,” Moose jokes, and the three of them laugh, cutting the tension a bit. “But seriously, Betty’s not like that, man.”

Kevin nods in agreement. “Don’t let your baggage with this Sabrina girl get in the way of what you could have with Betty.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “You sound like the best friend in a romantic comedy.”

Kevin pretends to flip his hair dramatically as he and Moose start packing up their stuff. “Well then, I’ve done my job. Now we will let you exercise in peace.”

  
  
  


**wednesday afternoon**

Like clockwork, Betty shows up at Jughead’s usual table in the library thirty minutes into his thesis-writing session. He glances up at her, trying to look unaffected even as his heart races at the sight of her bouncing toward him in that tight white sweater and brown overalls. 

“Mind if I sit here?” she asks, her arms already brushing the wood of the chair diagonal from him.

He shrugs noncommittally yet again, internally noting that he may strain his shoulders at the rate he’s going today. Betty shoots him a warm smile before unpacking her books and laptop and setting straight to work without preamble. Jughead grins despite himself before turning back to his writing, leaving them to work comfortably alongside each other for hours.

This time, Jughead leaves first, in search of sustenance—but not until after reaching his word count goal for the day.

As he gets up to make his exit, stomach grumbling, Betty timidly asks if she’ll see him for rounds that night. Jughead, remembering Kevin’s words from earlier that day, musters a soft smile. He gives Betty a hint of a nod before tugging his bag on and walking away.

 _I’ll take it,_ Betty thinks, her face flushing in anticipation.

  
  
  


**wednesday night**

Betty and Jughead are rather silent as they walk the halls for room checks. Betty attempts conversation on the first floor, but falls silent by the time they scale the stairs to the second floor, out of topics for Jughead to mutter one-word answers to.

They continue quietly down each hall of the remaining floors. Both of them subconsciously pause where they’d turned to head to Jughead’s secret spot the last two nights. Jughead winces, still feeling a stubborn hurt in his stomach from what _hadn’t_ happened the night before.

He’s the first to move, turning to continue down the hall toward his room when he feels a gentle brush of Betty’s hand on his shoulder. He relaxes into the touch despite himself, his eyes fluttering closed before he remembers the dull pain in his stomach. 

He’s about to growl out some angsty retort when Betty’s voice pours into the quiet old hallway like honey, sweet and thick with emotion. She’s breathless. Releases his shoulder and crosses her arms over her chest. 

“I want you.” 

And he can feel it in his bones. 

“What almost happened last night?” Betty continues. “I’ve wanted to do that for so, so long.”

The feelings are coming out in a rush, Betty can’t seem to stop them. She’s never been good at stopping once she starts: investigations, pleasing friends, the flow of words on a page. 

But pleasing herself? She usually never starts at all.

Jughead is staring at her with an intensity she’s never seen in his gaze before. The hurt that was once so bright in his eyes is fading now, replaced with a hybrid of lust and adoration. 

Betty dares to move herself a little closer to him and they lock eyes. “You know, Jughead, everyone’s been calling me a saint, an angel.” 

“Must be typical for you.” His voice wavers. _Am I shaking? It feels like I’m shaking._

She bites her lip, shakes her head. “It’s making me feel pretty guilty, though,” she says, carefully enunciating each word.

Jughead can feel his pants tightening at the seductive lilt to Betty’s voice. He cocks his head to the side as he considers her, trying to maintain his cool. “And why would that be?”

Betty steps forward, her eyes flicking across his lips as she comes dangerously closer. “The truth is, it was _easy_ to say yes to filling in for Ethel,” she pauses, taking a deep breath. “Once I saw that you were the other RA on duty.”

She dares to make eye contact to find that his pupils are blown as wide as hers, his face flushed as he stares down at her with the most heated gaze she’s ever seen. 

His hands come down to grip her neck at the same time her lips practically smash against his. They both laugh at the clumsiness of it, pulling away a bit before coming back together with a push and pull of lips and tongues. 

Betty moans, bringing her hands up to latch onto his beanie as he kisses her and tries to pull his keys out of his pocket without breaking contact. After another minute of desperate kissing, Jughead finally pulls back to unlock the door, still holding Betty around the waist as she tries to catch her breath. His hands shaky with anticipation, Jughead opens the door on the second try before turning around and hoisting Betty into his arms. Her legs come around him immediately, as if they’ve done this a million times. 

Jughead slams and locks the door behind them and their lips come back together as he holds Betty in his arms against the door. Betty prods his lips with her tongue and Jughead immediately grants access, stroking her tongue with his own. He pulls back a bit to nip on her lip. And then, suddenly, the side of her neck. Betty lets out a low moan, rocking her head back against the door at the sensation and throwing Jughead’s beanie to the ground so she can thread her fingers through his hair. That inky black hair she has longed to touch for longer than she’d like to admit. 

As he sucks what will likely be an impressive hickey into the same sensitive spot on her neck, Betty’s eyes float open for the first time since they entered Jughead’s room. It registers to her, as she takes in the three haphazard stacks of books adorning Jughead’s messy desk, that she’s never seen the inside of his room before. 

She brings Jughead’s face to her own and gives him a deep kiss, trying to pour into it all the emotion she is feeling, the _finally finally finally_ that is running through her head on a constant loop.

She pulls back a minute later and points to the book collection, finally getting Jughead to place her back down on solid ground as he turns. He shoots her a cheeky grin. “You like?”

“I love.” Betty walks over to the desk and starts inspecting the book covers.

Jughead shakes his head at her, beaming. “You’re distracted by books, really? In the middle of our moment?”

Betty laughs, the carefree, tinkling kind he’s heard more from her in the last week than he ever has before.

“Is that okay?” she puts the book she’s holding down and slowly walks back toward him, flicking her eyes up and down his body, from his tousled hair to his flushed face and tented pants. 

Jughead nods, placing his arms firmly around her waist as she swings hers around his neck. “In fact, Betty,” he says. “It’s precisely why I’m so fucking into you.”

Betty doesn’t even have time to blush before she’s devouring his mouth with hers, overtaken by a sexual hunger she’s never felt with anyone else. She needs to touch him, to hold him closer, to know that this is real. _He wants me as much as I want him._

Wordlessly, they make their way toward the bed, still making out. Betty carefully pulls down the straps of her overalls as Jughead’s shirt comes off. They help each other finish the job and soon they’re laying facing each other in his bed in only undergarments, just taking each other in.

“You’re beautiful, Betts,” Jughead murmurs, reaching forward to caress her shoulder.

She leans in and captures his lips, moaning as he takes a handful of each of her breasts and then tweaks a nipple between his skilled fingers. Betty’s whine is the hottest thing he’s ever heard. 

He brings his mouth down to her tits, first placing tender kisses on the top of each breast before daring to take a nipple in his mouth. Betty throws her head back, moaning and whispering little words of encouragement as she latches onto his hair again with her hands, guiding him as his mouth moves from one nipple to the other. 

Jughead pulls back, finally removing her bra after shooting her a questioning look and receiving a breathless nod in return. He stares at her, those perfect, full breasts he’d imagined a million times on display for him as Betty watches him seductively, so turned on by the way he’s hungrily taking her in. It feels like every look and flirtation they’d exchanged over the past few days had finally caught fire, like the tip of a joint, and now it’s steadily burning.

And Betty feels it in her core. “Kiss me,” she whispers and he covers her body with his own as he kisses her deeply, both of them gripping any part of each other they can as they both pour months of longing into this exchange. 

Betty lets her own hand wander down Jughead’s happy trail before shooting him a questioning look as she reaches the top of his boxers. Wordlessly, Jughead pulls them down and Betty counters by pulling her own panties off as well, blushing under Jughead’s heated gaze as he takes in a fully naked Betty Cooper.

Betty grabs onto Jughead’s dick, stroking it tenderly as Jughead closes his eyes and whispers, “Oh, god, Betty.”

She grins, continuing to stroke him and playing with his balls with her other hand as he moans. He opens his eyes just as she’s getting ready to give his shaft a good lick, but he stops her with a gentle hand on hers. She meets his eyes. “Everything I’m doing feels good?” Betty checks.

“Yes. Oh my god, yes. I’ve been dreaming about this…” 

“All year?” Betty supplies. “Me too.”

“Should we slow down? Talk? I just mean...I’m _really _into you, Betty. I don’t want to mess this up by going too fast.”__

__

____

Betty grins at him, at the sincerity in his voice and the raw adoration in his expression. But she shakes her head at him. “I’m _really_ into you, too, Jughead. I want to be with you.” She pauses as Jughead interrupts to give her a hard, sloppy kiss. She opens her eyes again, making eye contact. “But I think we’ve gone slow enough...haven’t we?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says, grinning. “We have.”

The rest is a blur. They reach for each other at once, Jughead gripping her nipples as she pumps his shaft.

And then Jughead is trailing kisses down Betty’s torso and she’s lost her grip on him, head thrown back against the pillow, hands in the sheets as she tingles in anticipation. Finally, he reaches her center, nipping at her thighs and spreading her legs gently with his hands as she whimpers.

He strokes her clit experimentally at first, before trailing a finger down her slit. “You’re _so_ wet,” he breathes.

Betty looks up at him. “All for you,” she whispers and Jughead continues trailing his finger up and down her slit before latching his mouth onto her clit, sucking as Betty moans loudly.

“Fuck, Jug,” she cries out as he adds a second finger and continues his relentless assault up and down her pussy, like he’s licking up every last drop. She pulls on his hair. He grunts and she feels her orgasm building in the very pit of her stomach.

“I’m close,” Betty whispers. “Don’t stop.” 

He rubs at her clit with the pad of his finger as he continues to lap up her juices, and suddenly, she’s coming, practically lifting off the bed as she bucks her hips against his face. He continues to tongue her through her orgasm as her hands cling to his hair and she cries out a series of curses intermingled with his name.

When she finally comes down, he halts his motions and kisses his way back up to her lips, finally plunging his tongue back into her mouth as she moans at the taste of herself on his tongue. “You’re so good at that,” Betty whispers. “I’ve never come so...hard.”

Jughead, flush with pride, gives her another hard kiss. When he pulls back, Betty whispers. “Do you have a condom?” He nods. “Good. Because I want you to fuck me.”

His dick twitches at the dirty words emitting from Betty’s mouth and he quickly turns to rummage in his drawer for a box of condoms that have seen no use aside from being raided by his friends when they run out.

He rips it open quickly, hands practically shaking as he places it on his dick. Betty leans forward to kiss him and he covers his body with hers again, making out with her and letting his hands play with her clit again as he lines himself up at her entrance. 

“You good?” he checks one last time, his fingers pausing their ministrations on her clit.

Betty whines. “Yes, fuck me, Jug.”

That’s all he needs. He pushes into her, both of them moaning at the feel of him stretching her out. “You’re so tight,” he grunts, bringing his thumb back to stroke her clit again. “I’m not gonna last long.”

He thrusts in and out, relentlessly attending to her clit as she cries out and bucks her hips to meet his rhythm. He rubs her vigorously, knowing he’s close to the edge, and he hears Betty’s breathing begin to accelerate.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she practically chants as he gives her a hard rub and she cries out. 

He’s over the edge seconds later, moaning into her neck as he rides it out and they both close their eyes in ecstasy. He collapses onto her, kissing her neck as she places soft, relentless kisses on his cheeks.

“That was so good,” Betty says when they’ve both calmed and stilled.

“Amazing,” Jughead agrees. 

He finally pulls out, getting up to dispose of the condom as Betty excuses herself to his bathroom (another RA perk) to pee and clean herself up.

Betty looks at her flushed, exhilarated face in the mirror and smiles. She’s never felt so free.

When she returns to the room, Jughead is laying on his back on the bed, wearing only a new set of boxers, staring happily at the ceiling. He smiles at her when she enters, patting the space beside him on the bed. In only her underwear, Betty curls herself up into him, internally tingling at how easy it is to rest her head on Jughead’s chest and feel his hand, firm but gentle, stroking her bare back.

“Let’s do that again,” she whispers to him, leaning up to give him a kiss.

“Tomorrow morning?” 

“Wake me up when you’re ready,” Betty says, her eyes drifting close.

Jughead smiles down at her, needing to take her in one more time to remind himself that this is real. That really just happened.

He flicks off his lamp and then he, too, floats off to sleep. 


	2. the ritual on the roof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! I’m finally here with the second chapter of this little two-shot! Thank you all for the incredible feedback I got on the first chapter!!!! I’m kinda obsessed with this little dynamic I created and it was pretty heartwarming to see y’all were too. If you follow me on Tumblr you’ll know I’ve been going through a rough patch in my personal life, which is why this update took so long, so I ALSO appreciate all of your patience! I hope you enjoy the conclusion of this little fic, and that the wait was worth it :) XOXO Maria

**thursday morning**

It’s been an overcast week, so Betty isn’t sure what she’s more surprised by when she wakes up: the naked boy whose arm is thrown possessively around her frame, or the streaks of early morning sunshine peeking through Jughead’s one window. 

She immediately remembers the night before: the confessions, the kisses, heated desire in both their eyes. Skin finally meeting skin. The orgasm that had left her feeling weightless and free.

Exhilarated, Betty shifts her body to bury herself more completely in the crook of Jughead’s arm. He groans, stirring slightly. One of his eyes half-opens and Betty smiles as she watches his face change with recognition that they’re still sharing a bed.

“Almost forgot you were here,” he murmurs, eyes still half-closed.

“Happy surprise?” 

“The happiest.” He yawns. “What time is it?”

Betty slowly mounts him. “Time for our second wind.”

“Follow that by a second sleep and I’m in,” Jughead says before cupping Betty’s chin and surrendering to a deep, passionate kiss that quickly evolves into something more. 

···

A few hours later, Betty kisses Jughead awake. She’s managed to haphazardly dress herself enough to hightail it downstairs to her room. As much as she could lay curled up with Jughead all day, she has things to do. And really needs a shower.

Jughead groans, but puckers his lips for a kiss with his eyes still closed, which Betty finds terribly endearing. She leans down and kisses him before whispering in his ear, “Gotta get to the gym and study and such.”

Jughead groans again. “Why must you be so responsible, Betty Cooper? You put me in a sex coma and then prance off to be productive.”

Betty smirks, her cheeks blooming pridefully. “I promise it wasn’t on purpose.”

Jughead finally opens his eyes and tugs on Betty’s hand, trying to draw her back into bed as she resists playfully. “I’ll be sad when I wake up again and you’re not here,” Jughead protests.

Betty giggles and kisses his cheek. “Come find me when you’re a person again,” she says. 

He nods, relinquishing his hold on her hand. “I’ll see you later,” he says as she blows him a kiss and then slips out the door. Jughead rolls back over immediately, images of the night (and earlier this morning) acting as a lullaby.

Betty moves quickly down the stairwell, praying none of the few residents will witness her half-naked walk and obvious sex hair. Betty knows she radiates an excited energy, one she couldn’t hide even if she wanted to, fumbling with her keys as she lets herself back into her room. 

Once safe in her own space, she lets out the excited squeal that’s been waiting to be released since the moment she and Jughead kissed the night before. 

_Finally._

  
  
  
****

**thursday afternoon**

As he exits the building and is subsequently bombarded with fresh rays of sunshine, Jughead cups his palm over his eyes and scans the quad. Of the hundred or so residents who have stayed behind for spring break campus-wide, it seems at least half of them have spread themselves out on the barely-budding lawn to soak up the limited decent spring weather they’re forecast to get all week. 

Jughead looks back down at his phone. He’d finally woken up about an hour ago and after a sobering shower and a bagel and double-shot coffee from the campus cafe, he immediately followed Betty’s instructions.

 **JUGHEAD:** _Officially a person again. Where are you?_

 **BETTY:** _I’m outside._

Jughead gives one last cursory glance across the quad before shooting off another text to Betty.

 **JUGHEAD:** _Oh, come on. You and everyone else. Can you be a bit more specific?_

Jughead grins when the three little dots immediately materialize on the screen.

 **BETTY:** _I said: ‘come find me.’ ;)_

Jughead bites his lip, shaking his head and laughing before digging his hands into his jean pockets and starting across the quad in desperate search of that signature blonde ponytail. 

He finally spots Betty sitting on a pink-patterned tapestry, completely lost in a book. As he ambles toward her, he internally notes that he needs to return the blue blanket she’d left on the roof Tuesday night. He’d taken it with him when he’d finally given up and returned to his room, but had been too stubborn to give it back to Betty yesterday...at least, before everything happened. It doesn’t surprise Jughead that Betty would have another cute linen on hand to bring outside with her despite the loss of the soft blue blanket, however.

Jughead grins as he finally reaches the edge of Betty’s tapestry, coming up behind her and resting his hands across her shoulders. Betty giggles, looking up from her book and relaxing into the soft kisses Jughead places on the back of her neck. She turns around and places a sound kiss on his lips before making room for him beside her.

“You found me.”

“How did you end up out here?” 

“Something along the lines of ‘savoring an empty campus while we can,’” Betty says.

“Doesn’t feel so empty today,” Jughead counters, gesturing around at the students laughing, vaping, and studying around them. 

“True,” Betty concedes, laughing. 

Jughead settles himself carefully in the folds of Betty’s blanket, rather smoothly placing an arm around her bare shoulders as if a well-practiced routine and not something completely new. (Something that has his heart racing about a mile a minute, more accurately.)

But Betty grins at him when she feels the not-unkind weight of his warm hand press against her back. She’d opted for a white sundress today, the one sprinkled with pink flowers that dips low enough to remind the general public that “Betty Cooper the saint” is no prude. It’s a careful line she treads, always, but as Betty looks up to meet Jughead’s lingering gaze, she can somehow tell that he sees her for the complication that she is. 

He dips his head to press his lips soundly to hers again and Betty smiles up at him when her eyes eventually flutter open. “You’re really good at that,” she admits with a breathlessness that Jughead is afraid will deter him from his mission.

He leans down again, just enough to plant a chaste kiss on Betty’s forehead. He concentrates, then, on looking into her eyes while absently rubbing circles into her collarbone. “I’ll admit,” he finally starts. “That I came with an agenda.”

Betty smirks. “I’d expect nothing less,” she says, choosing her words carefully. 

“We wasted enough of yesterday with my sullenness,” Jughead says, the corner of his eyes crinkling with amusement when Betty nods enthusiastically in agreement. “So I say we hit the ground running today with the investigation. We gotta figure out what’s going on before everyone gets back in a couple of days.” 

He looks around the quad, imagining the hundreds of students soon to return to campus, sunburned and hungover and populating the lawn with their chatter.

“You’re right,” Betty says, glancing at her phone for the time. “Let’s make sure we’re in the dining hall during the big rush at 6 PM, see if anyone’s doing anything suspicious.”

···

As they approach the dining building and both naturally swoop into their pockets for meal cards, Betty realizes she’s never walked into the dining hall with Jughead before. It’s nice, to have a boy who makes her blush tucked into her side, cracking jokes and making her giggle. 

The gentle but firm voice of Pop Tate interrupts their banter. “Jughead. Betty!” He sounds—if Betty’s not mistaken—pleasantly surprised to observe the pair entering the dining hall together from his current perch behind the card machine. 

“How you doin’ today, Pop?” Jughead asks, handing over his meal card with a warm smile.

Pop carefully swipes the card and hands it back with a genuine grin. “Enjoying the quiet dining hall while we still can,” he says as Betty offers her card.

“How’s your mom feeling?” Betty asks. 

“A little better this week than she was last week,” the man answers honestly, handing Betty back her card. “That’s all I can ask for.” Betty and Jughead share solemn smiles with him. 

“Enjoy the quiet while you still can,” Jughead says as Pop chuckles. 

“Always good to see you, Pop,” Betty adds as she slips her meal card back in her wallet. 

As they pass into the dining hall and head toward the kitchen, Jughead grabs Betty gently by the elbow to face her. “Didn’t realize you were friends with Pop too,” he says, smiling.

“He comforted me after an anxiety attack I was having, early freshman year,” Betty admits.

Jughead smiles. “Sounds like Pop,” he says. “Love that dude. We bonded the first time I was on campus early for RA orientation sophomore year.”

Betty’s eyes glitter at the anecdote as they both grab trays and survey the night’s options. “What’s your go-to in the dining hall, Jug?”

Jughead scoffs at her. “Whatever’s closest to me? Come on, Betts, I assumed by now you would understand that I will eat—nay, inhale—pretty much anything that is put in front of me.”

Betty laughs, long and deep, and it makes Jughead feel impossibly warm. “Lead the way then,” she says when she finally catches her breath, gesturing forward with the plastic red tray to punctuate her point.

Once both their plates are piled high with a wide enough selection of food for Jughead’s liking—having thoroughly flirted with Betty from the salad bar to the hot food station to the grill—Betty stops in front of the drink machine. “Now, what does Jughead Jones suggest here?”

Jughead comes behind her so his breath is hot on her neck, watching her shiver with a quiet satisfaction. “Honestly, Betty, I’m boring,” he finally admits. “I usually just get water.”

Betty bursts out laughing at that, and moves to grab them both plastic cups from the crate when Jughead grips her shoulder suddenly. She jerks her head up and follows his eye-line to find Pop swiping Ginger Lopez’s card while she balances a stack of papers under her arm.

“You still thinking we should investigate Ms. Lopez over there?” Jughead asks lowly.

Betty nods, watching Ginger saunter toward the back of the dining hall, ostensibly to put down her things before retrieving food. “Hurry, let’s go try to grab a seat near her.” _It may just be a hunch about astrology and weird symbols, but it’s one of the only leads we have._

Jughead hurries ahead as Betty stays behind to fill up their waters. There’s a thrill running down Jughead’s spine as he approaches the tables near the back of the dining hall, slowing his pace and attempting to casually look for a place to sit with Betty. He finally spots Ginger setting up shop at one of the two-seaters tucked in the corner, a haunt he’s familiar with when he’s trying to get some writing done over cups and cups of the seemingly never-ending coffee the dining hall provides. 

He quickly returns his gaze to searching for a table, finding a four-seater he and Betty can slide into within earshot of Ginger, but far enough away that they don’t look too suspicious. Ginger doesn’t seem to pay him any mind, carefully arranging the stack of papers she’d been carrying and pulling out books from her bag.

Betty finally finds him, walking slowly to balance her food and the two waters. She sighs in relief when she sees that Jughead has settled himself at a table within spitting distance of Ginger. 

Betty smiles as she sits in the chair across from him, noticing that he’s already dug into the salad she’d insisted he take—rather than just the croutons and cheese he usually throws on his tray (according to the little dining hall tour he’d just taken her on, at least).

“Nice work,” she says to Jughead as she pulls a notebook and pen out of her bag and slides it on the table next to her tray.

Jughead grins at her through a mouthful of food. “Betty Cooper: always prepared.” 

Betty blushes but nods. “That’s me.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and opens to a fresh page, her hand smoothing over the paper fondly. “In case we have any observations while we’re sitting here,” she adds, raising her eyes to meet Jughead’s. He’s been watching her intently.

“Okay,” he says, finishing his salad and moving onto his mashed potatoes. “Well, I saw Dilton and Ben in their usual corner on my way over here.”

“Me too,” Betty says. “Playing G&G, the usual.”

“The jocks are in their usual spot by the TV,” Jughead adds, tipping his head in their direction. 

Betty and Jughead fall silent as they eat, watching the group of guys whoop and holler at the TV and occasionally turn to each other to make a comment, seemingly about the basketball game. Jughead finally turns his attention back to Betty: “I’m not convinced those guys would even have the time to find the door to the roof between the playing of the basketball and the watching of the basketball.”

Betty laughs. “‘The playing of the basketball?’ Is that what they call it where you’re from?”

Jughead places a hand on his chest and adopts a tone of mock offense: “Now, Betty, I may not be athletic, but I have other strengths.” He quirks an eyebrow suggestively in Betty’s direction, making her cheeks heat with memory of the night before.

“I’ll concede,” Betty says, opening her mouth to say something more, but the pair are interrupted by Moose and Kevin sidling up to their table, red trays in hand.

Kevin’s eyes dart wildly between Betty and Jughead. “Hello, you two,” he says, his voice dripping with the drama his department is known for.

“Hey Kevin,” Betty says, trying to keep her tone light as she subtly slips her notebook closed and tucks it out of sight under the lip of the tray. 

Jughead smirks at her, noting her subtle movements, and it only eggs Kevin and Moose on further. Moose has a smug look on his face, like a father whose dad-joke landed just right with his audience.

“Looks like you two have been hanging out a lot this break, huh?” Kevin asks, bumping his hip against Moose’s.

“You look cute together,” Moose adds, earning a more forceful bump from Kevin. 

“Be more subtle than that,” Kevin hisses audibly in Moose’s ear, causing Betty and Jughead to lock eyes, both trying not to openly laugh at the couple before them.

“We’ve been having fun,” Betty says, grinning at Jughead. “How’s your break been?”

Kevin slings an arm around Moose’s shoulder. “ _So_ romantic,” he gushes. “Spring break is such a good time to bond with a special someone, isn’t it?”

Jughead would normally roll his eyes at a borderline-corny comment like that. But Betty is smiling at him in a way that he’s pretty sure no one ever has before, and he can’t help getting distracted by her infectious gaze.

“Yeah,” he finally says. “You’re right, Kevin. It really is.”

···

When Kevin and Moose have finally left them alone and joined the rest of the jocks around the TV, Betty pulls her notebook back out from under the tray. She scans her notes and then pushes them aside, folding her arms on the table and leaning toward Jughead with a delicate urgency. “So,” she says. “Tonight. I think we should stake out one of the common rooms and research every lead we’ve got.”

Jughead can feel his dick twitch in his pants at her lowered tone of voice, the way her eyes are locked intently on his, the sparkle in her eyes that he is almost certain matches the one currently shining in his own. “Sounds like a solid plan,” he says, leaning forward as he chews a dinner roll.

She smiles and pops a grape tomato from her salad into her mouth. “I’ll just have to stop by my room to get some supplies, but I’ll meet you in...maybe your common room? Fourth floor?”

“It’s not very well-used even on a normal week,” Jughead says, nodding in agreement.

“Your floor isn’t social? How fitting,” Betty teases. “It’s destiny…” she trails off when she notices Jughead’s eyes trained on someone in the distance.

He turns to look at Betty, but tries to look out of his peripheral at the approaching figure. “Evelyn is coming,” he says quietly.

Betty’s eyes widen. She shifts her body slightly in her chair, clutching her pen over her notebook and trying probably a little too hard to act natural. Evelyn is holding a glass of water in one hand and balancing a stack of flyers under her other arm. Betty immediately jots a note down next to the observation they’d already made about Ginger’s stack of flyers.

Jughead purposefully pulls out his phone and scrolls through it, attempting to naturally eavesdrop, but Evelyn and Ginger are talking to each other in low tones, each hunched over a stack of paper.

Betty shakes her head, scrawling on the notebook and then passing it across to Jughead: _They’re sneaky ass bitches, you see this?_

Jughead pulls out his own pen and quickly scrawls back, _Very suspicious._

Betty clears her throat, looking up from her notebook and locking eyes with Jughead, who puts his phone back down. “So, what are we doing tonight?” she says in a normal tone. 

“Whatever you want,” Jughead immediately drawls back, a lazy smile on his face that makes Betty wish for a second that they were actually just two normal college students on spring break about to go on a second date. But the thought lasts only a moment, because that’s when Evelyn and Ginger start packing up, their window of opportunity rapidly closing on them without having gathered any real intel. 

Betty straightens up, trying not to panic as she watches the two girls sling bags over shoulders and adjust their stacks of flyers under their arms. Jughead eyes Betty, unsure what angle she’s trying to play. 

Betty waits until the moment Ginger and Evelyn are about to pass their table to make her move. “Evelyn, Ginger!” she blurts out, a shy smile on her face.

The two girls whip their heads around. Evelyn’s eyes narrow at the sight of Betty and Jughead, while Ginger looks annoyed at being bothered. “What’s up, Betty?” Evelyn says, her voice even but wary.

“I was wondering if I could have a flyer,” Betty says, pointing at the stacks of paper under both their arms. Evelyn and Ginger look down at the flyers in confusion, as if they’d never considered the possibility of people actually asking for them.

Ginger laughs. “ _You_ want a flyer?” she asks, unconvinced.

“Yes!” Betty says, nodding insistently and looking to Jughead for encouragement, who has nothing to offer but a smile and a polite nod. “It has to do with astrology, right?” Betty adds. “I’ve recently gotten _really_ into it.”

Jughead tries not to laugh as Ginger continues to shoot Betty a partially confused, partially annoyed look while Evelyn narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Give her a flyer,” Evelyn finally says to Ginger after a silence, keeping her eyes trained on Betty even as she instructs her friend.

Ginger rolls her eyes but obeys, handing the flyer on the top of her stack to Betty. “Maybe we’ll see you at a Farm meeting soon,” she says bitterly.

“Thanks,” Betty says, trying to look nonchalant—which meant resisting her instinct to immediately inspect every single piece of writing on this sus-ass flyer. 

“Have a blessed evening,” Evelyn says, the pair finally turning and leaving the dining hall, but not without both Betty and Jughead hearing Ginger say something under her breath in Betty’s direction. “ _Detractor_.”

They both shrug it off, Betty handing the flyer triumphantly over to Jughead. “Did I or did I not play it cool?”

Jughead shakes his head, a grin breaking out across his face. “I don’t know if we can call that ‘playing it cool,’” he says to a disappointed-looking Betty. “But your investigative abilities are unmatched.”

Betty smiles, leaning in for a kiss that Jughead happily gives her. 

When they pull back, Betty wastes no time. “But seriously, Jug, while I go to my room and get supplies, you go to the library to scan in this flyer. Okay?”

Jughead leans in for another kiss. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I love it when you tell me what to do.”

Betty smiles, leaning forward to meet him halfway. “You better.”

  
  
  


****

**thursday night**

Jughead holds the door open for Betty as she marches into the fourth-floor common room wielding a milkcrate full of craft supplies and snacks. Jughead laughs heartily as he lets the door swing closed behind them. “Do you ever arrive anywhere without being ridiculously overprepared?” he quips.

Betty raises her eyebrows at him over the crate she’s just set down on one of the tables. “I think you already know the answer to that question.”

He grins cheekily, putting his backpack down before coming around the table so he’s positioned directly behind Betty, resting his hands on her shoulders. Betty closes her eyes and relaxes back into Jughead’s touch, already comforting despite only having known its warmth for a mere 24 hours. He presses a soft kiss to the back of her neck. “I love that about you,” he mumbles into the sweet smell of her hair.

Betty blushes and turns around in his arms, circling her own around his waist. “As much as I would love to listen to you talk about what you like about me all night long—” she says, pausing when Jughead lets out a laugh and nips her cheek. “—we do have a suspect board to assemble.”

“Have more romantic words ever been spoken?” Jughead asks, the soft playfulness in his eyes stirring something deep in Betty’s stomach.

She shakes her head and leans up to give him a kiss—one they both get lost in, letting it go on probably a little longer than they should—before pulling apart and getting to work unpacking Betty’s crate.

“First of all,” Betty says as she takes out a giant piece of cardboard she’d found in the recycling room and props it on a chair. “We should probably secure the door.”

“Even in spooky Riverdale they don’t have locks on the common room doors, Betty,” Jughead says. “Don’t you remember our repeated warnings to make sure no one has sex in the common rooms during RA orientation?” Jughead raises his eyebrows suggestively in Betty’s direction and smirks when Betty locks eyes with him, clenching her thighs together and biting her lip.

“True,” she finally says, trying not to think about how sexy Jughead’s near-proposition sounds right about now. “But maybe we just put one of the chairs against the door. For good measure.”

“A classic,” Jughead agrees, nodding approvingly. As Betty lifts one of the chairs from the common room table and heads toward the door, Jughead returns his attention to the crate. He pulls out a spool of twine, a package of thumb tacks, a neat stack of construction paper, and a pencil case filled with an arguably absurd number of markers, Sharpies, and glue sticks.

“Just some rations from your craft stash?” he teases as Betty returns to rummaging through the crate beside him. Betty reddens a little but smiles as she grabs the snacks she’d brought and places them on the other table in the room.

“Who else do you think makes those _beautiful_ bulletin boards you can find on every floor of this building?” she says, placing a hand defiantly on her hip.

Jughead blushes now. “Wow. I’m an asshole.”

Betty shakes her head, surprised by this sudden turn. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“No, seriously,” he says, a look of realization evident in his eyes. “Of all the three years I’ve been an RA, I’ve worked on maybe...one, two bulletin board displays? Like, total. And now that I think about it, in all three dorms I’ve worked in, the RAs who always picked up the slack and made the boards look good every semester were the women.”

Betty’s surprised. She’s never witnessed a dude actually identify his privileged behavior so accurately and genuinely before. She nods when Jughead finishes, a look of understandable horror covering his face. “That sounds about right,” she says honestly. “It’s been me and Ethel keeping this place afloat for the entirety of this year. Midge pitches in every once in awhile, but honestly...we all know it’s not her strong suit.”

Jughead shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Betts. For me and all the other men. We all need to...I need to...do better.”

Betty walks over to him, clasping his hand in hers and looking directly into his eyes. “You’re a good guy, Jughead Jones,” she says seriously. “Thank you for the apology, though. I forgive you, of course. Just keep doing the work. That’s all us ladies are _really_ asking of you so-called feminist dudes.” She releases his hand with a wink and he laughs.

“Fair enough,” he says. “I think I can do that.”

“Good,” Betty says, batting her eyelashes at him. “Now...suspect board?”

“Suspect board,” Jughead agrees.

They both take a seat. The room is soon filled with the sound of scissors cutting through construction paper, Sharpies scrawling names of suspects, glue sticks swiping quickly across the cardboard. Jughead sneaks a peek at Betty, writing “Ben Button” on a purple square with determination, and grins bashfully. He honestly _still_ can’t believe that in just 24 hours, he’s gone from pining for Betty Cooper to sneaking kisses while launching a full-scale investigation with her in the common room.

They both pause to admire their handiwork, Betty checking names against her roster. “I think that’s everyone staying in Sweetwater over break,” Betty confirms.

Jughead stares at the names, willing them to provide answers. 

“How about we try something new?” Betty says, gently interrupting Jughead’s contemplative silence. 

Jughead’s eyebrows quirk at that, but Betty continues on with a smirk on her face. She rips out a piece of notebook paper. “Let’s write down everything we’ve observed about each of these people over break so far,” she suggests. “We can put significant stuff on the suspect board.”

Jughead nods. “I admire the method, though I will add we should definitely stalk them on social media too.”

“Agreed.”

“Okay, let’s start with...Josie,” Betty says.

“I’ve seen her in the library a couple times,” Jughead tries.

“Library or dining hall,” Betty agrees. “I also saw her name all over the sign-up for the practice rooms, which checks out with her story that she stayed behind to get ready for post-grad auditions.”

Jughead nods in agreement. “Really nothing on her social media either,” he scrolls through her Instagram. “Just one selfie in her dorm room and an Instagram story from the practice room. Who’s next?”

“Dilton and Ben,” Betty offers, looking at their board.

“I’ve only seen them playing G&G,” Jughead says. “And besides updating their G&G blogs with their latest reports, I haven’t seen any social media use from them.”

“Wow,” Betty says. “You check their blog regularly?”

Jughead blushes. “Oh, hush. I just knew I’d...be able to interpret their weird G&G language, okay? But nothing seems particularly suspicious in there to me.” He crosses his arms across his chest defiantly and Betty comes forward to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, Jug,” she sing-songs and he laughs. 

“Appreciate my sacrifice into the world of G&G for you, Betty,” he jokes. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

Betty shakes her head. “So, Dilton and Ben check out on all fronts,” she says, frowning back at the board of names. “How about the whole jock crew? Trev, Reggie, Chuck? Any of them been doing anything suspicious on social media?”

There’s silence while the two of them scroll through the jocks’ social media pages, passing tweets about March Madness, shirtless mirror selfies, and Instagram stories from practice. “And I’ve only seen them eating in the dining hall or like, walking to and from practice,” Betty says. 

“Same,” Jughead agrees, sighing and sitting back in his chair. “I don’t know, I just don’t see most of the jocks as capable of doing something like this.”

“Hmm.” Betty’s eyes brighten, then narrow. “Wait...what about Moose? And Kevin? I’ve seen a lot of them this break.”

Jughead nods and shudders, thinking of his unwanted gym conversation with the couple. “The other day, they encouraged me to, like...take a chance on you,” Jughead admits, averting his eyes from Betty’s in embarrassment.

Betty smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah, after I was short with you in the gym,” he explains.

Betty looks like she has gears turning in her head. “What?” Jughead says, leaning forward and watching her.

“It’s just that...I got coffee with Kevin earlier this week, and he was very heavy-handedly trying to get me to make a move on you,” she admits, little dots of pink painting her cheeks. “And then their heavy-handed comments to us earlier tonight in the dining hall.”

“Yeah, they’re super intrusive,” Jughead concludes, laughing.

Betty laughs, nodding. “I agree, but what if...okay, I know this sounds crazy, but what if they put the symbols on the roof in the hopes of us bonding over it?”

Jughead chuckles. “Wow. What a theory. I mean, if true, they...succeeded? Right?”

He smirks at Betty and she nods. “If true, they could run their own reality dating show.”

Jughead shakes his head. “But why _those_ symbols?”

“Well...rainbow figures, very proud gay couple?” Betty tries. “And if the Cancer sign really is a Cancer sign, I do know for a fact that Kevin swears by astrology.” She points to his most recent Instagram story as proof.

“I don’t know,” Jughead says, sighing. “I’m still not convinced they’d have been able to sneak onto the roof or that they’d go to such great lengths to get us together.”

Betty nods. “True,” she says. “I think it’s a theory, but not our main theory.”

Jughead nods in agreement, watching as Betty jots it all down on the suspect board, joining Moose and Kevin’s construction paper names together with string and the title “THEORY #1.”

“Okay,” Betty says as she steps back to admire her handiwork. “That leaves us to investigate our sketchy little trio.”

Jughead stands up from his seat and stares at the suspect board, his hand resting on his chin. “Tina, Ginger, and Evelyn,” he says slowly. “They’ve all been suspicious this break.”

“Refusing to answer questions, carrying around weird flyers, talking in low tones,” Betty agrees, writing her most damning observations under their respective names on the suspect board.

“Anything weird on social media?” Jughead says aloud as he reopens the Instagram app. He scrolls. “Lots of annoying astrology-related Instagram stories, you’re right,” Jughead says, rolling his eyes. “Has Tina ever considered sitting one of these astrology memes out?”

Betty bursts out laughing, scrolling on her own phone opposite him. “Definitely not,” she says. “Still, nothing particularly suspicious on Tina or Ginger’s accounts. Nothing that matches any of the symbols or hints at exploring the roof of Sweetwater Hall.”

“What about Evelyn?” Jughead says, searching through Ginger and Tina’s photos for Evelyn’s handle.

“Does...does Evelyn have an Instagram?” Betty asks, similarly searching and coming up with nothing.

The room is quiet as they both swipe and tap at their phones, running through every possible name and nickname combo they can think of as they search for a trace of Evelyn Evernever. But there appears to be...none.

“No social media presence?” Jughead finally says, throwing his phone down on the table in defeat and shoving a handful of chips in his mouth. “If I didn’t already find her super creepy and weird, I’d admire this about her.”

“No _Internet_ presence,” Betty adds, collapsing down in a chair next to him at last. “I can’t find her anywhere!”

Betty attempts to throw her head in her hands on the table, but sits up when her forehead scratches a piece of paper. “Oh, fuck,” Betty says, looking down at the flyer they’d gotten from Ginger and Evelyn in the dining hall. “The _flyer._ You scanned it in, right?”

Jughead’s eyes light back up. “Yes!” They both quickly pull their laptops out of their bags, snapped back into action. 

Jughead pulls the PDF up on his computer as Betty inspects the paper flyer. It doesn’t have anything but platitudes offered as self-help advice, information about the next “The Farm at Riverdale College Meeting,” and a simple “The Farm” logo at the very bottom, the letters colored with a gradient rainbow.

Betty’s eyes perk at that. “Look, the logo is rainbow,” Betty says. 

Jughead shrugs after taking a closer look. “Yeah, but no weird little stick figures,” he argues. “Seems like a bit of a stretch.”

“Well, let’s try reverse-image-searching it and see if anything with the rainbow figures comes up,” Betty offers.

“Solid idea,” Jughead agrees, enjoying Betty’s perch over his shoulder as they scroll through the limited search results. 

The top hits are a Facebook page and Instagram account Evelyn had clearly set up for “The Farm at Riverdale College,” all bearing the same simple, rainbow logo from the flyer.

“So, she has social media for her club, but not for herself,” Betty murmurs. “Interesting.”

“There has to be some link back to the larger ‘The Farm’ organization, though, right?” Jughead asks as he clicks around The Farm at Riverdale College Facebook page, which is mostly comprised of Facebook events for club meetings with under 10 RSVPs.

They scour the entire Facebook page and Instagram account and a couple Tumblr posts by some anonymous club members on campus with weird urls, but find no direct link back to any sort of central “The Farm” organization. 

“You think Evelyn designed this terrible logo herself?” Betty says, laughing.

Jughead laughs. “Yes,” he says, pausing, “But doesn’t it always seem like she’s talking about The Farm being a chapter of a larger organization?”

Betty nods. “Yeah, that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the limited times I’ve heard her and her friends babbling on.”

Jughead puts his head in his hands for a few seconds, after having typed every combination of “The Farm” and “The Farm at Riverdale College” into the search bar he could think of, yielding no results. “Well, this is frustrating,” he says, laughing.

Betty taps her pen against the table, thinking quietly. “Hey,” she says, realization dawning. “Did we ever reverse-image-search the photos we took of those weird markings on the roof?”

Jughead’s eyes widen and he picks himself back up. “We totally haven’t.” His fingers are typing away at his computer faster than he can think. He tries a picture he has of the rainbow figures isolated first, thinking they may be most distinctive. Betty watches over his shoulder, her eyes glued to the screen in anticipation.

The top hit is an exact match, the shape of the figures and the shade of each rainbow color exactly the same. It tracks back to a dated-looking website for an apparently-defunct cult organization called Feelings Actualized Through Renewed Meditation.

“North Carolina?” Betty says, squinting at the screen and the photo of an idyllic-looking farm.

“This website hasn’t been updated since 2007,” Jughead says, scrolling to the copyright at the bottom of the page and scowling at the offensively ugly font. “And, yes,” he says, reading from the About Us section. “‘Headquarters located at a farm on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina.’” 

Betty’s eyes narrow. “Why would a symbol that tracks back to an early-2000s North Carolinian cult commune be anywhere near upstate New York?”

Jughead sighs, patting his lap. “Sit here,” he says. Betty smiles and climbs into his lap, running a hand over his beanie. “Let’s comb through this website and find out,” Jughead says, kissing Betty’s forehead.

“So romantic,” Betty coos as they both lean forward and begin scrolling through the Feelings Actualized website, Betty pausing to jot down notes occasionally, but mainly finding nothing of particular significance.

About twenty minutes later, Jughead pauses in his scrolling on the Blog section of the site. 

“Wait, look at this. It says ‘How to Spot a Detractor.’”

“‘Detractor.’ Why does that sound so familiar?”

Jughead’s eyes widen. “Ginger. Earlier. That’s what she called you under her breath.”

“Oh, _fuck_.” Betty’s face tells Jughead unmistakably that the wheels are turning in her head again, so he waits to respond. “Oh, fuck,” she repeats. “Jug.”

“Yeah?” Jughead is both amused and impatient, knowing by now that Betty’s brilliance alone means it’s entirely possible she’s somehow blown this case wide open.

“‘Feelings Actualized Through Renewed Meditation.’ F.A.R.M. Farm. The Farm.”

(Somewhere along the line they’d started shortening the name to “Feelings Actualized,” hiding what was right in front of them in plain sight.)

“The rainbow _was_ connected!” Betty says, pumping her fist in the air and shooting Jughead her patented “I told you so” look.

“I said it was a stretch, but I didn’t say it was impossible,” Jughead tries but Betty’s disgruntled look persuades him to press a soft kiss to her lips and concede. “You were right,” he murmurs into her blonde hair as he gives her a hug. 

···

Another twenty minutes later and they’ve found that the apparently-defunct Farm 1.0 includes a password-protected section that they cannot seem to crack no matter how many times they attempt to get in. Both frustrated, they push their chairs back from the desk, needing distance from their laptops before they combust—or, as Jughead colorfully puts it, carding his hands through his hair, his beanie having been thrown off ten minutes earlier: “I’m gonna smash my keyboard in.”

“Breathe in, breathe out,” Betty says, as much to herself as to him. “We just need a breather. We need to think. We can do this.”

“The answer has to be in there, Betts,” Jughead says, looking up so his eyes meet hers, both ablaze with curiosity and excitement and that _almost there_ phase of cracking a puzzle they both can’t get enough of.

Before they know it, they’re on the common room couch, Betty straddling Jughead back against the stiff cushions as they make out, a tangle of tongues and lips and legs, Betty’s hands fisted in his hair.

···

It’s a little after midnight when they find the forum for “detractors.” Apparently many of the “survivors” and escapees of the Farm had adopted “detractor” as an identifier on the Internet in the spirit of reclaiming the term.

Both Betty and Jughead have doughnuts in hand and are nursing their third cup of coffee for the night when a user named HoustonDetractor73 responds to their post with an offer to “DM me for more info.” Betty gasps and Jughead pumps his fist in the air, both their faces triumphant as Jughead opens a chat window and types as fast as he can.

 **WeLikeBooks420:** You have info that can help us get into the private side of the old Farm site?

 **HoustonDetractor73:** Oh yes. Nothing old about it, btw. They use that as a cover, but the Farmie site is very active and very alive. I just got out last year, so my login still works.

“Do you think they’re gonna want something from us to get in?” Betty whispers, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

Jughead shrugs, taking a sip of coffee. “Maybe she’ll want us to PayPal her $20 for the trouble?” he guesses, half-joking. He leans forward and types back.

 **WeLikeBooks420:** Is there any way we can use it? There’s a Farm chapter on our college campus and we’re afraid they’re gonna hurt people if we don’t find out how to stop them.

 **HoustonDetractor73:** What’s your email? I’ll send it to you now. 

Sure enough, it’s only five minutes later that Betty and Jughead are staring at Jughead’s laptop screen, the most wide-eyed and awake they’ve felt all night despite it being 1:30 AM. They’re in on the “Farmie” side of the website, as the detractor had put it. And it’s crazier than they ever could have thought possible.

HoustonDetractor73 is right, the Farmie guide is still very much active, with pages and pages of uber-specific chat forums filled with posts. There are blog posts and guides to everything from meditation to recruitment to starting a new Farm chapter, and Betty and Jughead barely know where to start. Betty’s hands move swiftly across her notebook page as she writes down observations, she and Jughead making jokes and comments to each other as Jughead scrolls and clicks, with Betty over his shoulder guiding him the entire time.

“There are literally no photos of any Farmies anywhere,” Betty says. “Have you noticed that?”

Jughead clicks through a couple pages, lifting his finger to rub his chin thoughtfully. “Huh, you’re right. Even on the fake side of the website, right?”

Betty points to her own laptop, where she has the public site open. “See, just a photo of the so-called Farm Headquarters in North Carolina. No Farmies anywhere.”

“They’re good at hiding,” Jughead murmurs.

“Just like someone else we know,” Betty says. “Evelyn Evernever.”

···

A reverse-image-search of the roof’s numerical symbols proves unnecessary. A few clicks later, Betty and Jughead are staring at a Farmie symbol guide that looks all too familiar.

“We struck gold,” Jughead says, holding his hand up to Betty’s for a high-five with his eyes still trained on the laptop screen.

Betty is mesmerized too, giving Jughead’s hand a slap with a dazed look on her face. “This is kinda chilling,” she murmurs.

“Totally creepy,” Jughead agrees, turning away from the screen to give Betty a soft kiss on the cheek. He looks into her eyes, getting her to turn away from the laptop for probably the first time in hours. “You want to take a break, maybe go to sleep, call it a night?”

Betty considers, closing her eyes for a second when Jughead brushes his hand across her cheek, then a lock of hair behind her ear. But she shakes her head as her eyes reopen. “We’re almost there,” she says. “I can feel it.”

Jughead smiles, leaning in to kiss her once more. They return their gazes to the screen, Betty pulling up her photos of the symbols on the roof from her laptop so they can compare side by side.

“This says ‘numerical markings may appear where a Farm ritual is set to occur, to alert fellow Farmies of the time and place of a coming ritual,’” Jughead says. “So we just have to decode this thing and we’ll know when they’re planning something.”

Betty’s eyes widen. “Holy shit,” she whispers. She pulls out a fresh page of notebook paper and brandishes her pen. “I think we were born for this,” she says, and Jughead laughs at the drama in her voice, the interaction tinged with the unique sleeplessness of a college all-nighter.

They work well together, if that wasn’t already clear enough, but this is solidified by the pain-staking labor of combing through the symbol guide and matching to the grainy iPhone images of the roof symbols.

(“I love working with you,” Jughead remarks as Betty does a little victory dance after decoding another symbol.

Betty grins. “We make quite a team,” she agrees, blushing.)

They ultimately decode the numerical symbols from the roof to mean: “ _a twilight ritual, to occur before a homecoming_.”

“They’re gonna do a ritual at night on the roof before everyone comes back from spring break!” Betty blurts out, a look of horror crossing her face.

Jughead looks between the notebook paper and the laptop to the photo and then back to Betty. He shakes his head as he rubs his hands together. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. So. We can now pretty strongly believe that something is going to happen on the roof on either Friday or Saturday night and that Ginger, Evelyn, and Tina are somehow involved.”

Betty nods. “And not just _something_ , Jughead. A _ritual_.”

“Yeah, but what does that _mean_?”

“Are their rituals listed on this website?”

“I haven’t seen anything. It always says ‘learn more about this ritual at your local Farm meeting’ when they get to that point on the page,” Jughead says. 

“So they keep them secret,” Betty says, shaking her head out of frustration.

“I told you, they’re good at hiding,” Jughead says, sounding slightly impressed.

“Hey, you know what, Jug?” Betty says, looking at the photo of the roof symbols open on her computer screen.

“Yes, Betts?”

“We never figured out what the fuck this Cancer symbol slash 69 thing means.” She turns to look at Jughead, her smile slightly maniacal in a 2 AM sort-of way, and Jughead laughs, standing and grabbing her in his arms.

“Betts, you know what that means, don’t you?” he asks as he releases her. 

“I’m waiting, you sexy detective,” Betty says, giggling sleepily.

“It means _that symbol_ is the answer to what the ritual is.”

  
  
  


**friday morning**

It’s the jabbing pain in her side that finally wakes Betty up. She blinks awake and groans when the fluorescent lighting of the common room screams back at her. She’s curled into Jughead’s chest on the couch, her back and limbs sore. 

Jughead groans beneath her. “Fuck, we fell asleep.”

“You think we’ll ever wake up together and not be surprised?” Betty quips, rubbing her eyes and looking at her phone. _5:47 AM. Great._

Jughead smiles, looking Betty’s messed-up hair and creased clothes up and down. “I certainly hope so.” They both grin at each other, sleepy in the quiet of the common room. 

Jughead finally breaks the silence, offering his hand: “Let’s go back to my room.”

  
  
  


****

**friday afternoon**

After passing out in Jughead’s room till a respectable noon and then dispersing to shower away the all-nighter and stock up on supplies, Betty and Jughead reconvene in Jughead’s dorm room at exactly 5 PM.

Jughead’s notorious stack of books has been relocated to make space for the variety of things Betty’s packed—and the pizza they’ve just ordered to fuel up—all for the stakeout they plan to begin tonight on the roof. They’d never quite figured out what the so-called Cancer symbol meant—having fallen asleep while still investigating possible ritual leads and concocting half-baked theories that made less and less sense as the early hours of the morning wore on. 

“I just can’t believe Betty Cooper even _owns_ a leather jacket, no less that she packed it for a stakeout,” Jughead is saying to Betty now, holding her most prized thrift store-find in his hands with an expression of disbelief plastered across his face.

Betty places a hand on her hip defiantly. “And why shouldn’t _I_ own a leather jacket?”

Jughead feels guilty that Sweet Pea’s face is what swims to the front of his mind, his mouth curling around the familiar phrase “Hot Patron Saint of Sweetwater.” 

“I don’t know,” he finally says to Betty’s expectant look. “Now that I think about it, why shouldn’t a badass woman like you rock a leather jacket?”

Betty grins, accepting the jacket back. “That’s the right answer, Jones.”

“Now, about this stakeout,” Jughead says, quickly changing the subject as he continues to survey their supplies. “We’ve got...snacks, portable chargers, camera.” He’d pulled his DSLR out for the occasion, which he’d saved up for earlier in college during a brief photography phase, but he figured it would come of good use now that they were needing to document an unknown cult ritual on their dorm’s roof.

Betty smiles at the look of fear and amusement covering Jughead’s face. “Thinking about how crazy it is that we’re spending our spring break trying to bust a cult ring on the roof of our building?” 

“Something like that.”

···

When the pizza finally arrives, they sit on either end of Jughead’s desk with their slices, both thoughtful and quiet at first as they chew.

“I can’t believe spring break is almost over,” Betty says, finally breaking the silence as she rips off a piece of crust and stuffs it in her mouth.

“Two more months of this place and we’re done forever,” Jughead says.

“Feels surreal.”

“Completely,” Jughead sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Honestly, the way I feel about the future changes every day.”

Betty’s smile reaches her eyes. “I feel the exact same way,” she admits. “Some days—the good days—I never want college to end. I get sad thinking of us never getting to have this freedom again.”

“Exactly.”

“Plus, I’m...scared,” she admits. “I used to have a safety net. Which I know was a privilege. My parents did pretty well. They own our local newspaper. But my sister got pregnant unexpectedly last summer. Twins. And...her boyfriend died before they were born.”

Jughead shudders, reaching forward to clasp Betty’s hand briefly. “That’s really rough. I’m so sorry, Betty.”

“Thanks Jug,” Betty says, squeezing his hand back. “It’s why I became an RA. My parents are rightly focusing their financial energies on ensuring Polly and the babies are well-cared for. So I figured I could ease the load on the entire family if I could cover room-and-board for my final year of college.”

“That’s...I completely get it,” Jughead says, awe evident in his voice. “I’ve been an RA every year because...well, I’m basically here on a fuck-ton of financial aid and a prayer. I have a younger sister, Jellybean, but she and I basically raised ourselves. Our parents are deadbeat alcoholics.”

Betty lays a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. You deserved better than that, Jug.”

He smiles appreciatively at her. “Anyway, JB’s an eighth grader, living with my grandparents now, and I just want to do well enough that she’ll have a shot at college too. Maybe even without having to patrol all her peers the entire time.”

Betty lets out a deep laugh at that, putting down her slice. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Almost all the RAs on this campus do it primarily for the money. It’s like, the poor kids end up having to spy on the more well-off ones.” 

“I think it’s a little more complicated than that, _Betty_.”

“Dramatic hyperbole, _Jughead_.”

They both laugh, and then fall into a silence as they continue eating their pizza.

“But yeah, like I was saying,” Betty finally says. “Some days I wanna be in college forever. And then other days, I see…” She pauses, seemingly looking into the distance of her very future. “New York.”

Jughead grins, thinking of Tuesday night on the roof, flirting about New York City over a joint. How different things had been then, just 48 hours earlier.

“I think about New York a lot too,” Jughead says quietly. It’s the truth. He hasn’t pictured himself anywhere else in years.

“I’ll see you there then?” Betty says, meeting his eyes. He can see she looks nervous but excited, and he finds himself feeling the same way whenever he’s around her.

He nods, maintaining eye contact and letting the corner of his mouth turn up into his signature smirk. “You can count on it.”

  
  
  


****

**friday night**

It all starts to feel real the second Jughead tugs on the string in the stairwell, the single bulb illuminating those well-worn stairs she’s come to know so well over this break.

“Lead the way, Jug,” Betty says, her voice a little shaky, and he doesn’t question it.

She follows, listening to the unmistakable sound of their footfalls on the creaky old wood, the familiar clink of Jughead’s keyring. It’s starting to feel more and more like they’re walking into a trap. As Jughead stoops down to pick the dusty brick off the ground, she grabs his wrist. 

“You okay, Betts?”

“If we keep the door propped open, it’ll tip them off that we’re up here,” she hisses, just realizing this flaw in their plan now.

Jughead sighs. “I know,” he says. “I considered this earlier today, but...we really have no choice. I don’t have the key that unlocks the inside lock on this sinister-ass door—” Betty laughs, cutting him off momentarily with a gentle kiss.

As they pull apart, he mumbles into her soft hair: “This is just a chance we’ll have to be willing to take, Betts,” he says, wedging the brick into the door. “There’s not enough people on campus for us to risk getting locked in up here,” he adds as he stands back up.

Betty nods. “Okay,” she agrees, shrugging. _What other choice do we have?_

Thankfully the roof appears empty, though their chatter would’ve surely tipped off any intruder to their presence by now anyway. Betty looks out at the night sky, pinpricked with stars, and wishes she could just sit on a blanket with Jughead, maybe smoke another joint, and make out a little. She tightens her leather jacket around her shoulders, shivering slightly as her body gets used to the dropping temperature. Betty and Jughead walk slowly across the roof, stopping by the low wall where the symbols are so carefully painted.

Rainbow figures for the Farm cult.

Numbers for a nighttime ritual before a homecoming.

The mysterious 69 or Cancer symbol that probably denotes a ritual...the one part of the puzzle they haven’t managed to crack.

Betty peers at the wall, finding all the symbols undisturbed since Tuesday night. Nothing new has been added, everything eerily still. Waiting. 

“Let’s head to my spot and drop our stuff,” Jughead says gently. They’d already discussed making his spot homebase for their roof stakeout. It’s far enough along the roof that they can remain hidden, but close enough to the symbols that, were the ritual to truly happen right in that spot, they’d have a good enough view to see and document what was happening. 

Betty stands up to her full height and follows Jughead to his spot. They both stop dead in their tracks when they catch a glimpse of Jughead’s little comic strip. In the left panel, the figure that bears an uncanny resemblance to Archie Andrews has had its head ripped clean off.

“Holy shit,” Betty gasps. 

Jughead’s eyes are blown wide. “Wow,” he whispers. “So...that seems like a warning, huh?”

Betty lowers her eyes and laughs nervously, her previous worries from the stairwell swimming back to the front of her mind. Jughead rests a protective arm on her shoulder, sensing her unease. “Don’t worry, Betts,” he says, softly. “You know I would do everything in my power to protect you.”

Betty looks into Jughead’s deep blue eyes and finds nothing but genuine concern and care reflecting back at her. She leans up and presses a forceful kiss to his lips, trying desperately to convey more than a single kiss could possibly convey.

“Okay,” Jughead says, clearing his throat, when they finally pull apart. “Let’s cut our losses.”

“Archie’s head,” Betty clarifies, interrupting and making Jughead laugh.

“Yes, Archie’s head. Sorry, Arch,” he pauses. “But seriously, back to business: let’s set up this camera.” 

Jughead pulls out his tripod with practiced ease and Betty steps back just to watch him, sensing she would only get in the way. Within minutes, he has the DSLR set up on their little roof wall, facing the spot where the mysterious ritual is set to occur.

“We need to camouflage it somewhat, Jug,” Betty finally says, sighing and heading back toward the comic strip where she’d set down her craft supplies. 

Jughead watches her with amusement. “You worked your magic,” Betty says, pulling out a piece of construction paper as she refuses to meet Jughead’s teasing eyes. “Now let me work mine.”

He can’t argue, as within ten minutes Betty has managed to mask the camera enough that someone entering the roof would have to really search for it in order to notice its carefully-watching eye. Jughead gives Betty a solid high-five before finally pressing “record” on the video setting. He pulls Betty’s blue blanket out of his backpack along with a bag of pretzels and the pair settles themselves for their stakeout to commence. The code wasn’t specific enough to tell them any sort of exact time, so they’re honestly unsure how long their nighttime vigil will last.

“Well,” Betty says about ten minutes in. “This is...a riveting way to close out spring break.”

“Maybe tomorrow night we can watch paint dry,” Jughead quips.

Betty laughs. “You know how I can tell I like you?”

Jughead grins cheekily back at her. “Is it my charming wit or my dashing good looks?”

“You’re close,” Betty muses. “It’s the fact that I always find your stupid jokes funny.” 

That’s enough for Jughead to retaliate with a friendly wrestle, which devolves into making out within seconds. Betty moans into Jughead’s mouth, knowing they’re alone and ready to make up for lost time from the Tuesday night roof kiss they’d missed. It’s the perfect solution to both passing the time and filling the insatiable need they’ve both had for each other since Wednesday night’s events had finally unleashed their feelings into the open.

Neither is sure how long they kiss languidly for; only that they’re startled apart by the definitive sound of voices in the near distance. Betty wipes her mouth as she and Jughead share frightened looks.

“Sounds like they’re in the stairwell,” Jughead whispers breathlessly.

Betty and Jughead immediately sit up on their knees but remain crouched down out of sight behind the low wall. The voices get louder and louder. Soon the door bangs open, and they can unmistakably hear Evelyn Evernever’s eerie voice cutting through the night: “Put it over there, in the place that’s marked.”

More footfalls and voices, followed by clangs and bangs. It sounds like the people picking up the rear are carrying pieces of equipment, ostensibly for the mystery ritual. Betty clenches her fists nervously. Across the blanket, Jughead reaches for her, squeezing her hand.

He points to their concealed camera as a reminder. “We’re rolling,” he mouths, and she nods quickly. It _is_ slightly comforting.

“Where do you want this?” The voice is unmistakably Dilton’s, and Betty and Jughead’s mouths both widen. _If Dilton is up here, surely Ben is with him._

Jughead gestures toward the low wall, moving to get up. He mouths to Betty, “Let’s sneak a peek.” She nods nervously, joining him as they slowly raise themselves higher and higher so they can just see over the brick wall.

They needn’t have even been worried about being detected, the Farmies are so preoccupied with setting up whatever crazy ritual they have planned. The door is still propped open and the Farmies don’t seem to have noticed how strange that fact is, thankfully. Evelyn is holding a large keyring in her hand as she gestures forward, directing a pair of people Betty has never seen in her life, two fit-looking men cloaked in white and carrying a large silver tub.

 _Those guests_ certainly _weren’t signed in to the building with us, per proper procedure,_ Betty finds herself thinking, still in RA-mode even in this high-stakes situation. _Who even am I?_

Betty practically gasps when another group of the Farmies swim into view. Every person on the roof, she realizes now, is wearing all-white. And among the nameless faces, carrying a set of candlesticks, is...Kevin. _No!_ And Moose, too, directly behind him, also carrying candles and a matchbox. Dilton and Ben are confirmed to both be present, standing dutifully behind the tub, having apparently deposited their candles in their rightful places. The candles are being arranged according to Evelyn’s instructions, which she’s delivering into the night air like a sermon. 

Ginger is crouched down, accepting candles from each of the Farmies and arranging them in a semicircle around the tub. Tina emerges onto the roof from the staircase with a final set of candles, and they watch Evelyn whisper in Tina’s ear, keys jangling from her wrist.

Betty and Jughead each snap a couple photos with their phones. Jughead nudges Betty and tips his head downward, signaling they shouldn’t push their luck any further, and they both duck back down into their hiding spot. 

“Whose keys are those?” Betty hisses out of the side of her mouth.

They push their blanket right up against the low wall and crouch as high they can without being seen, both trying to keep their breathing quiet. Jughead glances over at Betty, who looks decently worried, her mouth set in a hard line. He reaches across the blanket to squeeze her hand again and she shoots him a grateful smile. 

The voices have quieted, even Evelyn’s instructions have ceased, and a very temporary peace has settled on the roof. The strange circle formation is presumably to Evelyn’s liking, and Betty and Jughead are both holding their breaths to find out what will come next. 

“The many become one,” Evelyn’s voice pierces again through the night, making Betty’s heart race in surprise. 

“And the one become many,” the Farmies all reply in unison. 

Betty and Jughead shoot each other nervous looks, the kind you give someone when you’re not really sure if what you’re looking at is real or if it’s all some elaborate joke. Jughead half-expects Ashton Kutcher to jump out and declare them all Punk’d.

But as the Farmies—or cult people or whatever the hell their classmates are—continue chanting in unison, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that this...this is no joke.

…

An unfairly cold March wind whips through the night. Upstate New York is still thawing no matter what the campus calendar says.

Clad in his denim sherpa jacket, Jughead Jones crouches behind a brick wall on the roof of his dorm, cheek to cheek with a pink-faced, breathless Betty Cooper. This is the last possible place Jughead expected to find himself on a Friday night—and over spring break, no less. 

“What should we do?” Betty whispers out of the side of her mouth, her eyes darting between Jughead and the chaotic scene before them.

“Maybe you should go get campus security,” Jughead whispers back. “I’ll stay and watch to make sure no one gets hurt.” His blue eyes pierce Betty’s stunning greens as Jughead holds the gaze to ensure Betty understands what he’s really trying to say. _I got your back._

Betty nods frantically, seeming to gain strength from Jughead. She squeezes his hand, both of them exchanging a shaky smile before she releases him, hunching even farther down as she creeps across the roof, trying desperately to remain undetected. Jughead continues to observe their classmates, his pulse quickening as he watches Betty’s movements out of the corner of his eye, subtle and sleek in the black leather jacket he still can’t believe she owns.

His gut clenches when Betty reaches the door. She’s out in the open but no one seems to see her. He breathes in, out. Her hand makes contact with the door knob. She jiggles it once. But it doesn’t budge. Twice. She jiggles it a third time, a little frantic but trying not to make too much noise, before turning to Jughead, eyes widening as they come to the same terrifying realization: They’re locked in. On the roof. _With them._

No one seems to see Betty, but it doesn’t keep Jughead’s heart from racing with every painstakingly slow and quiet step she takes back toward him. They had picked a convenient part of this ritual for the movement—all of the Farmies have their heads bowed down to the ground as they “thank the Earth for its bounty,” white robes brushing against dusty roof.

Betty finally reaches Jughead, collapsing her head into his chest as she takes deep breaths. “I thought they were gonna see me,” she whispers as he clutches back at her, both of them finally safely out of view again.

“Same,” he admits.

“They shut the door,” Betty whispers. “How are we gonna get out of here?”

Jughead shakes his head. He hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. Isn’t sure he’s capable of doing so. He pulls Betty in closer and squeezes her shoulders, whispering in her ear: “We just have to wait it out and make sure they don’t do anything dangerous.” 

She nods, letting Jughead continue to embrace her as the ritual drags on across the roof with another round of chants.

Then there’s a silence, and Betty and Jughead look at each other, both wondering if the Farmies have entered some new stage of this strange—but so far seemingly harmless—ritual. 

“Let us light these candles,” Evelyn declares.

“Let us light these candles,” her followers chant back.

They hear the unmistakable sound of matches striking as the followers dutifully light their candles.

“We call on the wisdom of our elders!” Evelyn declares.

“We call on the wisdom of our elders,” her followers sing-song in a tone that would fit the textbook definition of “cult-ish.”

“This is the worst repeating game ever,” Betty murmurs to Jug, who hides his laughter in his sleeve.

“Tonight we gather to witness a rebirth,” Evelyn says, and when no one repeats after her, they figure she must have her hands held up dramatically in the air, like she does when she delivers weird sermons on the quad. Betty has to snort at the thought to keep from bursting out laughing and blowing their cover.

“It’s a sign of your unwavering devotion to our community, and to each other, that you have all reached this step,” Evelyn continues. It seems like she’s addressing a very specific group of the people assembled, but Betty and Jughead are too afraid to peek when the entire clan is so hyper-focused on Evelyn. “After you undergo your baptism, you will be completely reborn.”

Betty’s eyes widen. She mouths to Jughead, “69.”

“You will be reborn as your _truest self_ , a child of our community, made of light and wisdom…” Evelyn continues, but Betty tunes it out as the gears in her head start turning.

Betty swears she can hear an actual _click_ as the pieces come together. A crab shedding its shell. A new cycle. A _water_ sign.

“Is there water up here?” Betty mouths, thinking of Jughead’s joke about water signs earlier in the week. 

Jughead shrugs, knowing how much of the roof is currently out of their limited line of vision. They easily could have carried water up here. By his count, at least five different strange Farmies that Evelyn failed to sign into the building are here on this roof along with their actual residents. 

“Let us rise and begin,” Evelyn says, finally ending her sermon of mostly nonsensical buzzwords.

Betty’s eyes are worried in a way that Jughead hasn’t seen them yet tonight, colored by the certainty of her concern. They hear rustling as all the Farmies seem to get up and position themselves around the candles and the tub.

“Brother Kevin,” Evelyn’s voice cuts into the night. Betty’s eyes widen at Kevin being singled out, and she squeezes Jughead’s hand tightly as he looks similarly worried.

“You have worked hard to reach this chapter over the past months, and it’s my great honor to deliver you onto the next stage of this glorious journey,” Evelyn continues. “May the one become many!”

“And the many become one!” the crowd calls back.

The group continues to chant in time. Suddenly, there’s a splash, followed immediately by a gasp that sounds a lot like Moose. Betty lets out a gasp of her own, she can’t help it, and Jughead moves quickly to cover her mouth with his hand. They hear more splashes intermingled with continued, unrelenting chanting from the group.

Betty nudges her head toward the low wall, her eyes continuing to widen. “We have to see what’s happening,” she says through gritted teeth, and Jughead nods. They lift themselves up slightly, enough to see the corner of the tub, which is definitely filled with water. Betty catches a sliver of the moon reflecting off the pool, an image that would be beautiful in any other context. 

Betty leans forward, unable to help herself, needing to see what’s happening in the tub. When it finally comes into view, nothing could have prepared Betty for what she sees.

She lets out an involuntary scream, taking in the sight of Moose holding a body—she can tell immediately that it’s Kevin’s—underwater in the tub. Whether it’s an instinctual human reaction or a purposeful protest to the current turn of events, Kevin seems to be kicking and fighting Moose in his attempts to breathe. Water splashes out of the tub and Moose’s eyes have in them an expression of pure fright.

All the Farmies are chanting with such concentration that Jughead doesn’t see any of them startle at Betty’s scream. Evelyn watches Moose and Kevin with an intensity Jughead has never seen in anyone’s eyes before. Betty shakes her head, biting her lip and tearing up. She can’t handle the idea of losing a friend. Not like this.

Jughead has the same thought at the same time. We’re RAs, he thinks. We have a _duty_ to stop this, to make sure everyone who stayed on campus makes it out of spring break alive. Hell, if I can’t do _that_ , what the fuck are they paying me for?

At once, Betty and Jughead both leap up from their hiding spot, now revealing themselves completely. “Stop!” they both yell, running across the roof toward the ritual. 

Evelyn finally peels herself away from Moose and Kevin. She narrows her eyes and glares when she sees Betty and Jughead running toward her subjects. “We can’t have you endangering other students!” Jughead yells, already dialing campus security on his phone with one hand.

Betty accelerates past Jughead, managing to dodge Dilton and Ben, who both have their hands out to try to stop her, in her pursuit of Kevin.

“Stop them!” Evelyn yells, addressing the five strange Farmies. Two of them run toward Jughead while the other three attempt to apprehend Betty, who’s already pushing past Ginger and Tina to reach the tub.

“911! We need help on the Sweetwater Hall roof now!” Jughead manages to yell into his phone to a sleepy-sounding security officer, before the two strange Farmies descending on him knock the phone clean out of his hand.

He fights one of the Farmies off successfully with a punch to the gut, watching as Betty pushes Moose aside and grabs Kevin out of the tub. Moose is crying next to Betty as he watches her yell “Kevin!” and slap at his face. Jughead’s heart drops. He’s unresponsive.

Betty is down on her knees in seconds, performing CPR, as one of Jughead’s arms is pulled by a second Farmie attempting to wrestle him to the ground. Watching Betty out of his peripheral with a helpless desperation, Jughead tries to break free of the Farmie still pulling at him. Evelyn yells instructions at her followers, screaming for them to “stop the detractors!” as Betty tends to Kevin. Moose is on his knees sobbing beside Betty, who is seemingly completely focused on saving her friend.

Betty pumps one last time with a look of pure determination in her eyes. Finally, Kevin sputters and arches his back, dribbling water out of his mouth. Moose gasps out of grateful surprise as Kevin coughs and the noise causes enough distraction for Jughead to clock the Farmie in the face and finally wrest free of his grip. 

Jughead rushes toward where Betty is patting Kevin’s back through his deep coughs. Coming as close to Betty as he can without interrupting, he can tell that tears stain her cheeks. Moose reaches for Kevin, crying as he forces a confused-looking Kevin into an embrace.

Jughead runs his hand soothingly along Betty’s back, a million thoughts about how badass she is running through his head. He looks up, suddenly remembering the constant threat of the Farmies, and realizes that, in the time that Kevin has regained consciousness, Evelyn has assembled all her Farmies behind her as they approach Betty and Jughead.

Jughead pulls Betty to her feet and here it is: two RAs facing off with Evelyn Evernever, flanked by Ginger and Tina, with strange Farmies backing her up. There’s still adrenaline running through Betty’s veins, and she grips Jughead with a strength she didn’t know she had. “We got this,” she murmurs to him.

“You _detractors_ ruined everything,” Evelyn says, carefully enunciating each word as she moves closer and closer to Betty and Jughead, her Farmies hot on her heels. Jughead looks behind him and gulps when he realizes the game Evelyn is playing: she’s hoping to distract them by backing them up until they’re so close to the roof’s edge that pushing them off would be easy. Too easy.

Jughead tightens his own grip on Betty and tries to scan the roof floor for his discarded phone in the candlelight. Campus security has to be coming, he reassures himself, as Evelyn’s yelling reaches a new level of shrill.

For Betty’s credit, she counters each of Evelyn’s threats with a pointed comeback, but that doesn’t stop Evelyn from gaining ground as they’re pushed closer and closer to the edge.

Ultimately, Dilton is the first to hear campus security make its way to the roof, a place most of the officers hadn’t even known existed when they received Jughead’s call. 

“Someone’s coming up the stairs!” Dilton calls, rushing toward the group of Farmies threatening Betty and Jughead.

“Impossible,” Evelyn spits back. “I have the only key that unlocks that door.” 

Betty’s eyes widen, already calculating how she could wrestle that keyring out of Evelyn’s hands. But then, Betty and Jughead can hear it too: the unmistakable sound of footsteps pounding on the stairs, desperately trying to reach students in peril on the roof. There’s the sound of metal on metal as the security officers reach the top. Curses intermingled with keys incorrectly slotted in the lock.

Meanwhile, Evelyn is yelling about how “detractors are the scourge of the Earth.” Jughead looks behind them and is terrified to see that he and Betty are now only about ten feet from the edge of the roof. They’re running out of time. 

Then, a bang. 

Frustrated by their jumbled mess of keys, the security officers have forced the door open, and soon four familiar-looking faces flood onto the roof. “Help!” Betty immediately yells.

The officers look from the overflowing tub to the white-robed strangers to a wet Kevin and sobbing Moose, and then back at Betty and Jughead with confusion. Betty points to Evelyn. “This group of students, led by Evelyn, were conducting some sort of ritual. They held Kevin underwater and wouldn’t let him breathe. He was unresponsive when I pulled him out. They threatened us for stopping their ritual and—”

“Betty is crazy,” Evelyn interrupts. “This is religious persecution, pure and simple. We have religious freedom in this country.”

One of the officers is already calling a paramedic for Kevin, though, and the other shakes her head at Evelyn’s story. “Let’s bring you all down to the security building and talk about what happened,” she says. She turns to gesture around at the scene on the roof. “Whatever this is, it is certainly not normal.”

Jughead breathes out a sigh of relief, wrapping Betty in a hug, as the security officers attempt to lead the various Farmies down the stairs. “We refuse to go!” Evelyn screeches.

“We really try not to use handcuffs on students,” the security officer explains. “Please let us just walk over to the building and talk.”

“Please, Evelyn,” Betty pleads, pulling back from Jughead’s embrace. “Just let this be over.”

Dilton and Ben are the first to comply, leading the way down the stairs with one of the officers. Paramedics rush up the stairs next, prying Kevin from Moose’s grip and taking him down to the infirmary, with Moose following behind crying and apologizing to anyone who will listen.

Soon, it’s just three security officers left with Betty and Jughead and the remaining, most fanatical Farmies. “Let’s go,” the lead security officer says firmly.

Evelyn rolls her eyes and turns away from the officers, instead addressing her little congregation. “May the many become one!”

“And the one become many!” the group chants back. The security officers exchange looks of horror with Betty and Jughead.

“Come on, Evelyn,” Jughead tries. “You can explain why you did all of this in great detail when we get off this roof.”

“Chant for me,” Evelyn says to her flock, gesturing that they should start their way down the stairs. One of the security officers runs ahead to supervise them as Ginger, Tina, and the faceless Farmies walk downstairs, chanting continually.

“Well, this is gonna wake the whole building up,” Betty murmurs to Jughead.

Evelyn, on the other hand, remains on the roof, staring at the one remaining security officer and Betty and Jughead. “This,” she repeats, “is religious persecution.”

“Let’s go,” the security officer tries again, reaching forward for Evelyn.

“I will come,” Evelyn agrees, finally stepping forward. “But I will not come quietly.” Betty and Jughead roll their eyes.

“Let me just grab the video footage I took,” Jughead says to the security officer, jogging over to their concealed DSLR.

With camera in hand, Betty and Jughead begin following Evelyn and the security officer off the roof at last, Evelyn still screaming about religious persecution at the top of her lungs as they head down through the stairwells of Sweetwater Hall.

  
  
  


****

**saturday morning**

It’s after. 

After all the interviews and screams and waiting in hard, plastic chairs. After the hysteria and concerned faces and frenzied questions. After all the paperwork that had to be filled out and the parents who had to be called and statements that needed to be taken.

Betty and Jughead finally find themselves outside the security building, headed back toward Sweetwater Hall hand in hand, quiet in the early 5 AM light as they squelch through the dewy grass. 

In a way, Betty feels free, the weight of Jughead’s hand in hers a buoy keeping her afloat. She’s so tired that she feels awake, and the impossible sun beating down on them now makes her feel _reborn._

“Whatcha thinking about, Betts?” Jughead finally says, swinging his hand in hers slightly as he breaks the silence.

“How this has been the weirdest spring break ever,” Betty says. “But how—in the end, I feel...and I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I understand how truly ironic it is considering the events of the last 24 hours.”

Jughead stops in his tracks at that, maintaining a grip on Betty’s hand as he stares earnestly down at her. “You feel?”

“I feel _reborn_ ,” she says, and he smiles back at her. 

“This spring break _has_ been transformative,” Jughead agrees, nudging them forward toward Sweetwater Hall again. “In a few key, significant ways.” He squeezes her hand and she nods.

“For all the bullshit we had to endure this break, I’m just glad we got _this_ out of it,” Betty says.

Tomorrow there will almost certainly be news stories and reporters and questions to answer. But today it’s still just them, holding hands on a nearly deserted campus with a whole day ahead of them.

“Me too,” Jughead says, something inside him sighing of relief that she’s mirrored his feelings exactly, that they’re as in sync as he’d hoped they were. “Now, let’s go to bed.”

···

In Jughead’s bed, where Betty now feels safe in a way she never has in any bed she’s called her own, she lets Jughead peel her clothes off. She helps him pull his t-shirt over his head with a delirious giggle, and then buries her face in his naked chest as he lays a warm, protective hand across her bare back.

Too exhausted to fuck, Betty and Jughead drift to sleep curled around one another.

  
  
  


**saturday morning ( _late the night before_ )**

It was at 3:47 AM that Evelyn Evernever finally confessed to receiving keys to the roof of the building from Ethel Muggs shortly before she’d left campus.

As it turns out, Ethel had been a Farmie for about seven months, the fourth member of Evelyn’s Riverdale College inner circle. The roof ritual itself had been planned for about four months, and was in fact why Ethel had chosen to stay behind for spring break. She would get the group on the roof and they could initiate their four newest members without prying eyes. Or, at least, that was how she’d pitched it to Evelyn months earlier. She couldn’t have known her dad would unexpectedly fall ill, that she’d have to flee campus, leaving Evelyn just the keys and a wish of “good luck.”

In the tense room, under the oppressive fluorescent lighting, they all sat around that table for hours as the story unraveled of how exactly this little cult ring had formed.

Evelyn enrolled in September with the explicit goal of recruiting members. It takes a twenty-minute back-and-forth for the officers to get her to admit it, but the truth comes out nevertheless. Ginger and Tina were the first recruits, the only people to sign up for Evelyn’s booth at the orientation club fair. They warmed immediately to Evelyn’s philosophies and quickly became loyal followers, helping Evelyn recruit Ethel to their inner circle by the end of first semester.

“Ethel had the keys. We needed her,” Evelyn explains.

“Where did she _get_ the keys though?” Jughead asks, incredulous.

Evelyn shrugs. “Ethel’s a Riverdale College legacy. She said it was passed down.”

Jughead and Betty exchange a look, both not entirely convinced.

“Dilton and Ben weren’t purposeful recruits,” Evelyn says, rolling her eyes at the pair seated across the table. They’re both quiet, not chiming in even as Evelyn continues to talk about them as if they’re not sitting directly in front of her. “But Ethel became infatuated with Ben, so we recruited the pair of them for security. We couldn’t have any _detractors_ ”— she pauses to shoot a menacing look in Betty and Jughead’s direction — “derailing our plans.”

“What about Kevin?” Betty says angrily. “How did you ‘recruit’ him?”

Evelyn grins, seeming to find satisfaction in Betty’s distaste. “I don’t know if you know this about Kevin and Moose,” she pauses for dramatic effect. “But they went through a rough patch earlier this semester. The month of distance during winter break was hard on them.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. _Evelyn’s so full of it._

“I helped him through that rough time with the teachings of the Farm,” Evelyn says, adopting a tone of faux innocence that makes Betty’s blood boil. “And I was able to help him and Moose see how they could work through their problems as part of our community.”

Betty’s eyes narrow. “So, you’re saying you completely emotionally manipulated a young gay couple into joining your cult?”

Evelyn shook her head, laughing. “Oh, you detractors all sound the same.”

Betty throws her hands up in the air, eyes widening. “You can’t be reasoned with, can you?”

“I just hope you find your truest self someday, Betty,” Evelyn says innocently. “As all of us have through the light of the Farm.”

The lead security officer clears her throat loudly. “Anyway, Ms. Evernever, you will certainly be facing some sort of disciplinary action from the college when school is back in session on Monday. Expect a notice of your hearing sometime this week.”

Evelyn smiles. “As long as I’m entitled to a fair hearing, I’m sure the jury will find that this is a case of religious persecution, open and shut.”

The security officer laughs. “Look, I would prepare yourself. Because considering how many rule violations I’m counting here, I wouldn’t rule out an expulsion.”

Evelyn’s facial expression barely changes. She simply shrugs and says, “The Farm got what we needed out of Riverdale College, didn’t we?”

A silence falls over the makeshift interrogation room as Betty, Jughead, and the officers sit waiting, knowing they all have to stick around for the buttloads of paperwork that await them.

“Oh, there’s one more thing,” Evelyn says, a devious look appearing on her face. “Moose and Kevin failed spectacularly at their mission this break.”

Betty and Jughead’s eyes widen at that. “Kevin had a mission?” Betty says.

Evelyn trains her eyes on Betty’s with an evil sort of glimmer. “Oh, yes,” she says. “They had careful instructions to distract the RAs from what was happening.”

Betty and Jughead lock eyes, another piece clicking into place. “So _that’s_ why they were so interested in us taking a chance on each other?” Jughead says aloud, blushing when he realizes how many people are in the room.

“Yes,” Evelyn says, rolling her eyes. “Who knew romance wasn’t enough to distract you two detractors from busting up our ritual?”

“Next time maybe you won’t underestimate us,” Betty says coolly in response.

  
  
  


**saturday afternoon**

The sun finally peeks through the clouds on an otherwise drab March day.

It forces its way through Jughead’s bedroom window, rousing him after hours of much-needed rest. He yawns and smiles when his usual stretch has him colliding with Betty’s naked form, solid next to his. She stirs, muttering something incomprehensible as she tugs Jughead’s arms back around her, seeking his warmth.

Jughead smiles, lowering his face to her neck and breathing in her scent before peppering little kisses down toward her collarbone. “Mmm,” Betty says, finally opening her eyes. “I slept _so_ well.”

“Me too,” Jughead says, leaning down to kiss her. Betty pushes her tongue into his mouth, deepening the kiss as her hands card through his hair. He eagerly reciprocates, covering her body with his own. He remembers, as his hands find purchase on her heaving tits, that they both fell asleep naked the night before.

Betty moans as Jughead lazily strokes at her nipples, pinching occasionally to her little screams of pleasure, as they continue to kiss. He pulls his mouth away from her lips and brings them down instead to her breasts, lavishing them with the attention they deserve. Betty arches her back and closes her eyes as she lets herself get lost in the sensation, her hands still threading through Jughead’s hair.

“Mmm, yes,” she whispers before yelping as Jughead gives her left nipple another tweak.

He looks up at her and grins. “I want you,” he says, his seductive tone turning her on immediately, before he returns his attentions to her chest, slowly trailing kisses down her stomach and approaching the tops of her thighs. Betty practically shivers in anticipation, already so wet with need. She can feel Jughead’s hardness through his boxers as he lays on top of her, finally reaching his destination as he kisses the inside of her thigh.

He lets a single finger swipe across Betty’s slit. She whines as he lets out a groan of his own. “You’re so wet, Betty,” he says. “All for me?”

Betty opens her eyes so she can deliver what she wants to say directly to him: “I’ve been wet since last night,” she admits, biting her lip as she stares at Jughead. He gently rubs at her clit as she continues, breathless as she tries to get out her last, stuttering words. “Everything that happened, figuring it out together, you protecting me on the roof, ohhh fuck...I...I’ve never been so turned on in...ah!...in my life.”

Betty’s speech devolves into moans, closing her eyes again and gripping the sheets as Jughead adds a finger without warning while continuing to rub her clit. “Oh, fuck, Jug,” she whispers as he curls his finger and hits a spot she’s certain none of her partners have ever found before. “Oh my God, right there, right there.”

Jughead continues to rub her clit furiously as he pumps a second finger inside her, Betty’s moans and pants spurring him on. He watches her tits bounce up and down, her eyes closed as she throws her head back, an expression of pure bliss and relaxation on her face that he wishes he could keep there forever. “Don’t stop, I’m...oh, fuck, I’m about to come.” 

Jughead pumps her through the orgasm, whispering, “Oh, yeah, you’re so tight. So hot. So perfect.” She moans at the praise, breathing heavily as she comes down. 

“Holy shit,” she whispers when Jughead finally removes his fingers with a squelch and brings his fingers to his mouth. She bites her lip, clearly turned on as she watches him suck the remnants of Betty off his digits. “You’re so good at that.”

Jughead shakes his head, thinking of his incredibly limited experience. “I’m good at that with _you_ ,” he says, leaning down to give her a deep kiss, which she eagerly reciprocates. He pulls back, but she keeps her hands tangled in his hair. “Jug,” she whispers. “I want you to fuck me.”

She reaches down to stroke at the top of his shaft and Jughead groans into her touch. “How do you want me to fuck you?” he croaks out as Betty plays with his balls with one hand.

“I want you to take me from behind,” she answers without hesitation. In that moment, Jughead truly believes Betty must be the hottest woman alive. They kiss and he turns over to grab a condom from his bedside drawer while Betty repositions herself. When he turns back around with the condom on, he groans at the sight of Betty’s tight ass on display for him, waiting patiently.

He gets on the bed behind her, grabbing her ass cheeks in his hands to her little moan. Jughead scoots up just enough to drop a kiss to Betty’s shoulder before lining himself up right at her entrance. He reaches down and puts a finger inside her, making her moan as he pumps in and out. Once her breath is hitching in her throat he stops his movements, immediately replacing his finger with his dick as he finally pushes inside her.

They both cry out at the first pump, Jughead’s body on fire from the feeling of being so thoroughly enveloped in Betty’s heat. “I’m not gonna last long,” he whispers, kissing her back. 

“Just fuck me, Jug,” Betty whines, gripping the sheets with her hands.

That’s all the invitation he needs. Jughead pumps in and out of Betty at a steady pace, Betty moaning as he hits her again and again. The air is filled with their gasps and cries of each other’s name. Never has Betty been so turned on or so in sync with a sexual partner, and so quickly. She pushes her knees closer together, and they both groan at the sensation of the new angle as he continues thrusting up into her.

“Oh, god,” he groans. “I’m close.”

Betty rubs at her clit, moaning, as he thrusts once, twice, thrice, and finally comes. “Betty. Oh, fuck. That was…”

“...so good,” Betty supplies.

Jughead pulls out of her and moves to dispose of the condom as Betty turns over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling with reverence. She stands up a moment later, quickly disappearing into the bathroom.

When she returns to the room, Jughead is sitting on the end of the bed, dressed only in a fresh pair of underwear. He hands Betty the panties they’d discarded early that morning and she smiles, fitting them back on as she sits beside Jughead on the bed. She leans in and gives him a sound kiss.

“Um,” she says when they pull back, Jughead lazily resting his head on her bare shoulder. “I know this sounds ridiculous. But, considering the week we’ve had...we’re like, dating now, right?”

Jughead pushes himself back up to full height and shoots Betty’s a goofy grin. “God, I fucking hope so,” he says, and Betty giggles.

“Well, that’s settled then,” she says, leaning in to kiss him.

He pushes her back onto the bed and they let themselves get tangled again in the sheets, enjoying the freedom of a lazy Saturday afternoon. Betty rests her head on Jughead’s bare chest as he runs one hand through her hair and the other protectively around her shoulders. They fit perfectly like this.

“Hey,” Jughead says after a couple minutes of comfortable silence. “You know what I just realized?”

“Oh god. What?”

“We never figured out why that window on your floor was open on Sunday night,” he says, looking down at Betty with that unmistakable investigation-high look in his eyes.

Betty’s eyes widen. “Oh no! And that window was right near Veronica’s room too!”

They both laugh, and Betty sighs. “Well, Jughead Jones, I guess we just found our next mystery.”

  
  
  


**saturday night**

It’s hours later when they finally decide to attempt venturing outside in search of food.

(“Just to go to the dining hall!” Betty insists to Jughead’s meager protests. “We ordered pizza last night, let’s be money-conscious here and not order takeout for a second night in a row.”

“Betty Cooper: always making more responsible decisions than me,” Jughead says, standing against the bed. He tugs Betty back in his arms again, though she barely resists.

“One day you’ll run out of such catchy phrases to attribute to me.”

Jughead shakes his head, his eyes sparkling as he gazes at her. “Doubt it.”)

The compromise leads to an unshowered Jughead being half-dragged down the hall by a sweatshirt-clad Betty, both of them joking and teasing as they head toward the front door.

“You are so lazy, Jughead Jones,” Betty is saying flirtatiously, holding the lobby door open for him.

“Now, Betty Cooper—” but he stops in his tracks, both their smiles fading in the light of a professional camera flash.

“This is them!” a blonde reporter with a fake-looking tan yells, running toward them with microphone outstretched and an overweight camera guy on her heels. “Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones, you’re the two RAs who discovered a dangerous cult on your campus?”

“Oh, my God, Jug,” Betty says, quickly grabbing his arm and moving herself slightly behind his taller frame.

There are at least three different news vans parked outside their building, flashing cameras and a few different, heavily made-up women now approaching them. “I don’t want to do this,” Betty whispers, her voice muffled in his sherpa jacket.

Jughead pushes Betty even further behind him and out of sight. “No comment,” he says firmly, and then holds the door to their building open for Betty as they quickly flee back inside.

···

“This is absurd!” Betty yells the second they return to Jughead’s room. “We can’t even walk from our residence hall to our dining hall without being mobbed by news cameras? We go above and beyond as RAs, figuring out there’s this creepy, dangerous cult on campus, and what do we get? No peace!” Betty continues.

“You’re right, Betts, this is absolute bullshit.” Jughead sighs. “But, also. Food,” he groans, touching his stomach for emphasis.

Betty frowns, nodding, as her own stomach rumbles. “Ah-ha!”

Jughead shoots her a challenging grin. “Yes?”

“I have a $50 bill in the back of my desk that Veronica insisted on putting there ‘in case of emergency.’”

“I would say this definitely qualifies for some emergency Chinese food,” Jughead says, stepping forward and encircling his arms around Betty’s waist.

So they migrate downstairs to Betty’s room in search of money and marijuana. When their food arrives an hour later, Jughead offers to meet the delivery person at the door, yelling out an exaggerated “and they said chivalry was dead!” as he returns to the room with the hot bag of takeout. Betty bursts out laughing from where she’s putting the finishing touches on a joint she rolled with the rest of her Sour Diesel.

Jughead has already narrowed down their Netflix options to a reasonable shortlist of five true crime docs and pushed the desk against the bed. He unpacks takeout boxes as Betty cracks her window and sparks the joint.

“See, now, Betty?” Jughead says as he settles on the bed beside her. “Hiding from the intrusive news cameras in style.”

“Tonight, we do normal twenty-two-year old delinquent stuff,” Betty says, breathing out a deep hit and passing Jughead the joint. “Not creepy cult delinquent stuff.”

Jughead leans forward for a kiss before taking his hit. “I’ll smoke to that, Betts.”

  
  
  


**sunday morning**

Veronica Lodge arrives back on campus at 10 AM, feeling thoroughly refreshed, cultured, and ready to take on the end of senior year with her best girl Betty Cooper by her side. But from the moment her Louboutin makes contact with Riverdale College ground, she senses that something isn’t right.

“Thanks, Smithers,” she says to her driver, blowing him a kiss as he unpacks her suitcases from the trunk. “I think I’ll pay a visit to my dear Bettykins before I retire to my room, give her the gift I brought back from Paris. Do you mind bringing these up with your spare key?”

“Of course, Miss Lodge,” the always-faithful Smithers says, tipping his hat as she marches toward Sweetwater Hall.

As Veronica turns the corner from the driveway onto the Sweetwater Hall lawn, her suspicions are confirmed. There are news vans parked directly on the grass in front of their building. Groups of students mill around outside, gossiping and ogling the reporters and cameras. 

Veronica folds her arms across her chest, surveying the entire scene with suspicion. She moves herself strategically close to a group of juniors she knows to be terrible gossips and listens closely as she walks slowly past them.

_...A cult ring that’s been busted...connected to a cult commune that recently moved to the outskirts of Riverdale...two RAs busted the case wide open over break…_

Veronica’s eyes widen immediately and she quickens her pace, more determined than ever in her mission to reach Betty’s room and make sure she’s okay. She curses the lack of an elevator in this janky old building as she climbs the stairs, passing each landing with an exaggerated sigh before she finally reaches the third floor. She pulls out her keyring and finds the key emblazoned with a pink “B,” the spare she _insisted_ be made in case Betty were to ever be in any sort of danger.

When Veronica finally reaches Betty’s door, she sighs before slotting the key daintily in the lock. She’s really missed Betty, and she can’t wait to see the look on her face when they’re finally reunited…

Veronica walks confidently into the room, but immediately stops short. There, in the bed where Betty and Veronica have gossiped and done homework and smoked countless joints, is Veronica’s best friend, sweaty and naked and getting absolutely _nailed_ by that very hot RA who Veronica has always insisted seemed exactly Betty’s type.

“Oh, fuck…yes...” Betty says, her eyes closed as she grips Jughead’s neck, just as she hears a shriek. A _Veronica_ shriek.

She opens her eyes and screams at the sight of her best friend standing right in her doorway. “Veronica!”

“Oh shit, Veronica?” Jughead says, halting his thrusts and attempting to cover them both up with the blanket.

Veronica covers her eyes dramatically with her hand. ““So sorry. Should’ve knocked.” She steps a bit further into the room, dropping a gift daintily at the foot of the bed. “Got this for you from the catacombs.” She starts to back away, eyes still covered. “We’ll catch up at dinner. I expect _full_ details. Dining hall, 6 PM sharp. Don’t be late.”

The door closes and Betty looks up at Jughead, blushing at his goofy grin. “So, that was Veronica…”

  
  
  
  
  


_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What’s that? Moments for Bughead smut and romance and emotional fallout after a big action scene and resolution of conflict?! Take notes, Riverdale writers. 
> 
> Anddddd we’ve somehow reached the end!!! I started the bones for this story in March and I’m honestly pretty stoked with how it turned out. This was my first fore into writing investigative duo Bughead and I had a BLAST writing this dynamic. I hope I did them—and the mystery I set up in the first chapter—justice! It would be amazing to hear from you all; let me know what you thought, and thanks so much for reading! XOXO Maria 
> 
> Oh and P.S: for my Exhale readers, I am now officially returning my writing energy to “Exhale.” More stoner Bughead story times coming this summer!

**Author's Note:**

> *comes out from hiding* so what did y’all think??? I’ve been working on this little world excitedly by myself for so many weeks, I’m so excited to hear what y’all thought of it! Drop me a line and lemme know if you liked it ;)
> 
> Also, huge shout out to my favorite Astrology Gays/lovely friends Caitlin and Charles for their astrology consulting!!! XOXO Maria


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